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WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, 

FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION 



— i . ^ 

BY JAMES W I'' M A R S H 

— „. ** 




fes> 



W* 



Stubborn Facts — 
Read them if 3'ou dare. 
Deny them if you can. 



LOUISVILLE: 

BRADLEY & GILBEET, COE. THIED AND GEEEN STEEET3. 

1866. 












Entered according to Act of Congrees, in the year 1866, 
By JAMES W. MARSH, 
n the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of 

Kentucky. 



V* 



:... 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

CHAPTER I. 

5 
The Origin of Disunion Sentiments, 

CHAPTER II. 

Early History of the Union 

CHAPTER III. 

17 

Thr Missouri Compromise 

CHAPTER IV. 

23 

What was it all about? 

CHAPTER V. 

36 
Erroneous Ideas of State Sovereignty, 

CHAPTER VI. 
Foreign Influences at work against the Uryon, 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Conspiracy against the American Union, 

CHAPTER VIII. 

57 

The Supremacy of the Constitution, 

CHAPTER IX. 

87 

John Brown's Body, 

CHAPTER X. 

79 

Turning a New Leaf, 

CHAPTER XI. 

8i 

The Stiff Backed Men, 

5 CHAPTER XII. 

9(> 

Firing on the Flag, 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Forts Warren and Lafayette, ' 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Massachusetts and South Carolina 

CHAPTER XV. 

114 

American Rebels of 1861, 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Articles of Confederation made in 1778 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Constitution made by our Fathers, 



WASHINGTON'S PKOPIIECY, 

OR 

A TRUE HISTORY OF TILE CAUSES 

WHICH PRODUCED THE REBELLION. 



CHAPTER I. 

TEE ORIGIN OF DISUNION SENTIMENTS. 
All Americans are aware that, in most cases, the public meas- 
ures proposed by the leading men of one party, are sure to be 
violently and bitterly opposed by the politicians of the opposite 
party. Thus, the war of 1812 was bitterly opposed by the Fed- 
eralists of that period, because Mr. Madison and his party favored 
it. Many other incidents might be cited to show the perverse 
disposition generally exhibited by each party in relation to the 
measrres originated or advocated by their opponents. At differ- 
ent periods the ppliticians of certain sections have become so vio- 
lently embittered against the stronger and more powerful party of 
their opponents, that they have even plotted and conspired for the 
dissolution of the Union, thus showing that they were disposed to 
destroy the Government, rather than to remain in the Union and 
enjoy the benefits of a Government which Jthey could not wield 
mid control to suit the purposes of their party. "If we cannot 
rule, we will ruin," has been the motto of politicians in more than 
one of the great parties. The Federalists, during the Adminis- 
trations of Jefferson and Madison, from 1801 to 1815, were per- 
haps as violent and bitter as any party that ever existed in our 
country. 'They opposed every public measure of the Adminis- 
tration without regard to truth, justice, consistency, or the inter- 
ests of the nation. Because thev could not elect a President of 



6 Washington's prophecy,, or 

their own party, they seemed determined to oppose even their 
own interests as citizens and the interests of their o\in States. 

In 1808, Mr. Josiah Quincy, a leading Federalist of Massachu- 
setts, and a member of Congress, loudly censured and abused Mr. 
Jefferson because he submitted to many insults and injuries from 
England without declaring war against her. 

© © © 

In 1812 we find Mr. Quincy and all his friends loudly abusing 
and denouncing Mr. Madison and his party because they had at 
last declared war, rather than submit longer to the insults of the 
British Government. The Federalists were determined not to be 
pleased with any measure of the Administration so long as it con- 
tinued in the hands of their political opponents. 

One of the most prominent and important events in the earlt 
history of our country was the purchase of Louisiana from the 
Emperor Napoleon by Mr. Jefferson, in the year 1803. It will 
be recollected by the intelligent reader that the tract of country 
called Louisiana, as purchased by Mr. Jefferson's Administration, 
extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, including 
all the region which now forms the States of Louisiana, Arkan- 
sas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon, besides large 
Territories not yet formed into States. The purchase of this 
large country for the trifling sum of sixteen million dollars was 
most bitterly opposed and denounced by the Federalists. What 
-was the true reason of their opposition to the measure ? Evi- 
dently they had no grounds except the perverse spirit of party. 
Tf Mr, Jefferson had been elected as a Federalist, and had subse- 
quently made that same treaty of purchase, the Federal party 
would have sanctioned and supported the measure. But they 
were angry, discontented, and soured, because Mr. Jefferson, a 
Democrat and a Virginian, was elected President instead of their 
revered John Adams of Massachusetts. They seem to have 
thought that after Washington had left the Presidential chair, it 
rightfully belonged to Massachusetts to fill that office, and from 
the day when Jefferson was elected, Massachusetts became a stand- 
ing, uncompromising opponent of all and every measure of his 
Administration. 

The Federal party from 1796 to 1820 had complete control in 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 7 

Massachusetts. Some of the other New England States were 
rather more inclined to support the measures of Jefferson and 
Madison, but in Massachusetts the Federal party held absolute 
sway. After Louisiana had been purchased, and after it had be- 
gun to exhibit, under American supervision its capacity for be- 
coming a source of benefit to the American Union, the Federal 
party still continued to manifest its spite on that question, by op- 
posing every measure introduced for the benefit of that country. 
No matter how completely the old French and Spanish inhabitants 
submitted to American laws; nor how many Northern citi- 
zens emigrated to Louisiana and desired to enjoy the benefits of 
the laws of the Union, the Federalists practically said to them, 
"We do not desire your admission into the Union, and we will 
not admit you if we can prevent it." Yet if Mr. Jefferson had 
refused to purchase Louisiana when offered to him, or had offered 
to sell it again at double the original cost, undoubtedly the Fed- 
eral party would have abused him just as severely as they did for 
purchasing it. 

In process of time a portion of the great territory having became 
sufficiently populous, was formed into a State and the people 
asked admission into the Union in 1811. The Federal party in 
Congress opposed the admission of the new. State. The bill was 
before the House of Representatives when Mr. Josiah Quincy in 
an opposition speech said : " I am compelled to declare it as my 
deliberate opinion, that if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union 
are virtually dissolved, that the States which compose it are free 
from their obligations, and as it will be the right of all, so it will 
be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation, amica- 
bly if they can, violently if they must." When Mr. Quincy had 
• pronounced these words he was called to order by Mr. Poindex- 
ter. Mr. Quincy then repeated and justified the remark he had 
made, and to prevent all misapprehensions he committed it to 
writing in the following words : " If this bill passes it is my de- 
liberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union : 
that it will free the States from their moral obligations; and as it 
will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of the some definitely to 
prepare for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they 
must." 



S WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

After some little confusion, Mr. Poindexter required the decis- 
ion of the Speaker whether it was consistent with the propriety 
of debate to use such an expression. He said it was radically 
wrong for any member to use arguments tending to dissolve the 
<>overnment and tumble this body itself to dust and ashes. He 
further observed, "It will be found from the gentleman's own 
statement of his language that he has declared the right of any 
portion of the people to separate." Mr. Quincy now requested 
the Speaker to decide, saying, " If the gentleman is permitted to 
debate the question, I shall lcse one-half of my speech." The 
Speaker said that "great latitude in debate was generally allowed, 
and that by way of argument against a bill, the first part of the 
gentleman's observation was admissaBle, but the latter member of 
the sentence, viz : 'that it would be the duty of some States to 
prepare for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they 
must,' is contrary to the order of debate." 

In this instance we see that Mr. Quincy asserted, not only the 
right of all the States to separate, but that it would be the duty of 
some — meaning, of course, Massachusetts and the New England 
States — to separate amicably if they could, but if not then by 
force of arms. It is evident from the very deliberate manner in 
which Mr. Quincy spoke that he and his friends had previously 
consulted together on the subject, and agreed to support one an- 
other in some plan of secession. But notwithstanding all oppo- 
sition, Louisiana was admitted, and Massachusetts did not secede. 

Three years afterwards, however, Mr. Quincy and his friends 
thought that the time had come for a separation. The nation was 
involved in a war with England; the Federalists had been for a 
long period engaged in firing the New England heart, and the Se- 
cessionists called a Convention of all the New England States to. 
meet at Hartford, Connecticut. The Convention assembled ac- 
cording to appointment, near the close of 1814. It held its ses- 
sions with closed doors, and not a word of its business was ever 
permitted to reach the public through the press. Its proceedings 
were kept as strictly concealed as those of a Masonic Lodge. 
But as the members wero all Federalist:-, all opposed to the Ad- 
ministration, all violently opposed to the war, and as many of 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 9 

them had openly advocated separation from the Union, the subject 
of their deliberations may be easily guessed. Whatever they 
concluded to do, their objects were frustrated by the Treaty of 
Ghent, by which peace was made shortly afterwards. Very prob- 
ably they might have considered it dangerous to attempt secession 
when they were not likely to receive aid from England. As soon 
as peace was made all threats of secession ceased. The question, 
however, seems an open one, whether Mr. Quincy and his Hart- 
ford Convention friends were loyal men or not. We know from 
history that the Governors of Connecticut and Massachusetts re- 
fused to allow their militia to go out of those States when called 
for by the President, and that they seemed to contend strongly 
for State Rights ; but whether their conduct amounted to treason 
or not, seems an unsettled question. 



10 Washington's prophecy, or 



CHAPTER II. 

EARLY HISTORY OF THE UNION. 

In the year 1819, the American Union experienced a second 
shock. It was then for the first time that the North was arrayed 
against the South, and the South against the North. From 1787 
to 1819 no very general dissatisfaction had arisen betwixt the two 
sections. It is true that numerous individuals had been constant- 
ly engaged in denouncing the institution of slavery, but the ques- 
tion had never been brought up in such shape as to array the two 
sections against each other. There seemed no jealousy, animosi- 
ty or envy between them outside of Massachusetts. The North- 
ern people gladly welcomed into the Union Kentucky, Tennessee, 
Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, although they were slave 
States. The people of the South also gladly welcomed Vermont, 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, although they were free States. Be- 
sides in 1786 the State of Virginia had ceded the Northwest Ter- 
ritory to the Union, and on the 13th day of July, 1787, all the 
Southern as well as Northern members of Congress agreed to 
prohibit forever the existence of negro slavery in that Territory. 
The Territory has since been divided into five great States, viz : 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, all rich and pop- 
ulous free States ; and in those States our general Government 
has sold for cash nearly two hundred million dollars yorth of pub- 
lic lands. All this money was expended in paying the debts of 
the Union and the expenses of the national Government. Vir- 
ginia previously claimed the whole of that Territory, and all the 
other States acknowledged the justice of her claim. As she was 
in 1786 the greatest, richest, and most populous of all the States, 
so she proved herself the most generous of them, by giving up 



FACTS CONCERNING TUB REBELLION. 11 

that immense Territory for the benefit of the Union. She might 
have retained control of the whole Territory; she might have sold 
the lands for her own benefit. No other State claimed a better 
right to it. She might have reserved the right to hold it subject 
to settlement by slaveholders with their slaves, and subservient to 
Southern interests, but her statesmen were not so selfish, penuri- 
ous and bigoted. 

Perhaps if some one of the other States had held control over 
that great Territory, the Union would never have received the two 
hundred million dollars. But in 1787 all the Southern as well as 
Northern members of the Congress of the Confederation freely 
agreed that slavery should be prohibited in the Northwest Terri- 
tory. Did this look like a desire to rule the North for the bene- 
fit of the slave power? Very oppressive and overbearing were 
those Southern States, were they not? Do you suppose this was 
done in order to obtain some favor, advantage, or benefit for the 
South? Not at all. Not one iota of favor, or one dollar of ben- 
efit did the South ask or receive as a compensation in any form 
whatever. 

Do you answer that this was a kind of compromise, and that 
they thus obtained the privilege of establishing slavery in Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, which were also 
Territories at the time when the Ordinance of '87 was passed ? 
You mistake, there was no occasion for compromise at that time 
on that subject. Kentucky was unanimously acknowledged as the 
property of Virginia, Tennessee belonged to North Carolina, Missis- 
sippi and Alabama to Georgia. Therefore there was no occasion 
for the South to say, give us the privilege of establishing slavery 
in these Southern Territories, and we will agree to prohibit 
slavery in the Northwest Territory. If the slave States had not 
then had all the Territories in their own hands, it might have 
been called a compromise; but at that time it was an act of per- 
fect generosity on the part of the Southern States. 

We know the South, in 1787, might have stuyed out of the Union 
and kept possession of the Northwest Territory, as well as all the 
Territories, of the Southwest, which were acknowledged as their 
property. But perhaps the Southern people then had no idea 



12 Washington's prophecy, or 

that the time would come when the North would set all the slaves 
free, and compel the white race to accept the negro as their 
equals. 

As every reader may see the Articles of Confederation gave the 
Congress which existed before the adoption of the Constitution, 
the power to make treaties and compacts on all subjects between 
the United States and any other party, provided the delegates in 
Congress from nine of the thirteen States should vote for such 
treaty or compact. In the closing article of the Ordinance of 
1787, as every reader may see, the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwest Territory was made an article of perpetual compact 
between the thirteen original States, and the people who then in- 
habited, or might at any future time inhabit any part of said Ter- 
ritory. Then when the Constitution was afterwards formed, the 
following clause was inserted in that document: "All debts con- 
tracted, and engagements entered into by the Congress of the 
Confederation, shall be as binding under the Constitution as they 
would have been under the Confederation." 

As all treaties and compacts made by the Congress of the Con- 
federation were in every sense of the word considered as engage- 
ments, so the compact prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Ter- 
ritory was immediately recognized as binding upon all the people 
of the United States. Therefore, the very first Congress that met 
under the Constitution in 1789, passed an act confirming the Or- 
dinance of 1787 in all its parts, and of course confirming the ar- 
ticle which prohibited slavery, and required all fugitive slaves to 
be delivered up to their owners. 

Mr. Abraham Lincoln, in his speech at the Cooper Institute in 
New York, in February, 1860, dwells with great emphasis upon 
the Ordinance of '87, and the act of the first Congress under the 
Constitution in 1789, as proving the truth of the Free Soil theory 
that Congress had the right to prohibit slavery in all the Terri- 
tories. He says, "in that Congress in 1789 were sixteen of the 
very men who were members of the Convention that framed the 
Constitution ; and the act confirming the Ordinance of '87, was 
passed by an unanimous vote, and of course these sixteen men 
who assisted to form the Constitution must have voted for it, as 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 13 

they did not vote against it." "Therefore," says Mr. Lincoln, "it is 
proved that Congress had a right to prohibit slavery in the Terri- 
tories, or else these men would have objected to it. The candid 
reader who considers for a moment the Articles of perpetual com- 
pact made in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation, and then 
examines that clause of the Constitution which makes all the en- 
gagements entered into by the Congress of the Confederation as 
binding upon the United States under the Constitution as they 
would have been under the Confederation, will see at a glance, the 
fallacy and sophistry of Mr. Lincoln's argument on the subject. 
The Congress of Avhich he speaks never hinted that they had 
power to prohibit slavery in Kentucky or Tennessee, or Missis- 
sippi or Alabama, neither of which had then become States. And 
although they had power to legislate for the District of Columbia 
on all subjeets, yet they received and accepted of the cession of 
that District from Virginia and Maryland, and never once hinted 
that slavery ought to be and should be abolished there. 

How easy it is to see that they were not Abolitionists, like the 
Boston Anti-slavery societies, who, for thirty years, made so much 
noise concerning the existence of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia. The Congress of 1791 admitted Kentucky and Vermont 
into the Union without even hinting that Congress had power 
under the Constitution to reject one of them because she tolerated 
slavery. Washington was then President, and Jefferson Secretary 
of State ; and under that Administration the Fugitive Slave Law 
of 1793 was enacted, and Tennessee was admitted as a slave State 
in 179(3. They never said to Vermont, or Kentucky, or Tennes- 
see, you must divest yourselves of the right to hold slaves, or 
we cannot receive you. 

During all the period, from 1789 up to 1832, no party ever 
urged, or even petitioned Congress to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madi- 
son, Monroe, John Q. Adams, and Jackson, had each filled the 
Presidential chair before any effort was made by any party, in or 
out of Congress, to abolish slavery in the District. 

John Q. Adams, it is true, after his defeat for the Presidency, 
and his election to Congress, did present petitions from the Anti- 



14 wiishington's prophecy, or 

Slavery Societies, asking Congress to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict ; but although Mr. Adams voted for the reception of the pe- 
titions, he always denied being in favor of granting their prayers. 
If any reader doubts the truth of these statements he may be ea- 
sily satisfied by investigating the records and histories during the 
period from 1787 to 1860. 

But we will now return to the earlier periods, and see what was 
the action of Congress on the slavery question. In 1802 Con- 
gress passed an act enabling the people of the State of Ohio to 
form a State Constitution. In that act Congress specified that 
slavery must be forever prohibited in that State. Mr. Jefferson, 
of Virginia, was then President of the United States. The slave- 
holding States, then, also had a majority in both Houses [of Con- 
gress, and they knew that the admission of Ohio as a free State 
would give the free States two more Senators, and at least one 
more Representative immediately, yet without any feeling of envy 
or jealousy they all voted that Ohio must come in as afree State- 
Ohio was the first State formed in the Northwest Territory. When 
Indiana was admitted in 1816, the same prohibition of slavery 
•was made, and Mr. Madison, as President, approved and signed 
the bill. This was the second State in which slavery was prohib- 
ited in consequence of the Ordinance of 1787. Illinois, in 1818, 
under Mr. Monroe's Administration, formed the third of those 
States. Michigan, in 1836, was the fourth, and came in under 
Gen. Jackson's Administration. Wisconsin, in 1842, was the 
fifth, and came in under Mr. Tyler's Administration. Thus it 
happened that every one of the five States formed in the North- 
west Territory which were positively required to adopt free State 
Constitutions, thus continually increasing the strength of the free 
States, as they were then called, were each admitted into the 
Union under the administrations of Southern Presidents. And 
in no case did a Southern Senator or Representative oppose the 
Anti-slavery restriction in those States. Does this course of 
conduct show that the Southern people were actuated by a desire 
to control and govern the North for the benefit of slaveholders? 
Does it exhibit a determination to hold possession of the Govern- 
ment, when at that very time they knew that each free State 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 15 

would render the South more and more liable to be overpowered? 
The history of that period must satisfy every candid person, that 
the Southern people, up to I860, felt confident that their rights 
would be safe in the Union even if the free State3 had a majority 
in both Houses of Congress. Perhaps the reader may be of that 
class who sneer at the mention of State Rights ; but he should 
recollect that every one of the Presidents under whom those five 
Northwestern States were admitted, belonged to the State Rights 
school of politicians. Perhaps the reader may retort, that al- 
though they were State Rights men, yet they believed in the Free 
Soil doctrine of the Republican party. All a mistake. They 
never allowed their anti-slavery or pro-slavery feelings or inter- 
ests to govern their official actions as representatives of the na- 
tion. Therefore the assertion made in these days that the Gov- 
ernment was formerly controlled by slaveholders, for their special 
interest and benefit, is absolutely false, and no class of men are 
more perfectly aware of this than Messrs. Seward, Sumner, Wil- 
son, of Massachusetts, and their coadjutors at the present time. 
The action of Congress from 1789 up to 1861, was fully as fair 
and honorable towards the free States of the North as it was to- 
wards the slaveliolding States of the South. Thus they required 
the five Northwestern States to prohibit slavery, at the various 
periods from 1802 up to 1842, exhibiting the most scrupulous 
candor and fairness in fulfilling the compact; but when Vermont 
was admitted in 1791, and Maine in 1821, Congress did not re- 
quire them to prohibit slavery. And why not? Because there 
was no compact nor agreement, nor Constitutional obligation re- 
quiring Congress to make such a demand upon those two States. 
Thus it is proved that the official conduct of Southern statesmen 
on the slavery question during all the aforesaid period, was in 
every respect liberal and fair towards the North. They showed 
not the least desire to acquire any advantage over the North in 
any manner whatever. They fulfilled every Constitutional obli- 
gation with the strictest fidelity. The feelings and prejudices of 
the Northern people were treated with respect and consideration. 
The North continued to prosper, to gain wealth and population far 
more rapidly than the South. Can any person be so blinded 



16 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

as to believe that the prosperity and progress of the North would 
have been any greater if the Government had been administered 
by Northern Presidents, than it was under Washington, Jeffer- 
son, Madison, Monroe, of Virginia, and Jackson and Polk, of 
Tennessee? It can hardly be possible. But it seems that the 
anti-slavery men of Massachusetts have been too sharp for the 
open-hearted, confiding Southerners. 

The true version of the story makes one think of the fable of 
the cat and the mouse. The cat coaxed, purred, and appeared 
very friendly until he could get his claws on the mouse; then the 
mask was laid aside, and the mouse paid for his credulity with his 
life-blood. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE E2BELLI0N. 17 



CHAPTER III. 

i 

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

The reader will recollect that the State of MissoHri was formed of a 
part of the province of Louisiana, which was purchased in 1803 
from the Emperor Napoleon I. Louisiana had been, since its set- 
tlement, a French province, except for a short period during 
which it belonged to Spain. As African slaves were used for la- 
bor in all the French, Spanish, Dutch, and English colonies in 
America and in the West Indies, as a natural consequence, negro 
slavery became the established law of Louisiana under the French 
Government, and continued so to be when it came into the hands 
of the American Union. When it was purchased the United 
States Government bound itself by the treaty, to allow the inhab- 
itants every right which they had enjoyed under the French Gov- 
ernment. Of course this included the right to hold slaves. There, 
again, we cross the feelings of the anti-slavery man. He says, 
"Look there; see how the slave-holders in 1803, were managing 
the Government for their own benefit." Do not be too hasty, 
dear reader. There had been serious trouble between Spain and 
our country on account of the navigation of the Mississippi, and 
because New Orleans and all the country around the mouth of the 
river was under Spanish control, so that all our Western and 
Southwestern States and Territories were compelled to pay trib- 
ute to Spanish Governors. The people of Ohio, Kentucky, Indi- 
ana, Tennessee, and other parts of the West, could have no mar- 
ket for the products of their labor, except by submitting to the 
most ridiculous taxation by the Spanish authorities. The whistle 
of the steamboat and locomotive had not then been heard nor even 
dreamed of. Could the Buckeye, the Hoosier, and the Kentuck- 
ian haul their produce in wagons, five, six and eight hundred 



18 Washington's prophecy, or 

miles to Philadelphia or New York?' Wh.it a question. What 
were the people of the "Great West to do with their surplus pro- 
ducts in future years, when the whole Northwest Territory should 
become settled? What inducement was there for the Eastern cit- 
izen to emigrate to Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois, so long as he could 
find no market for the products of his labor ? The old Federal 
party cared nothing for all this. They opposed and denounced 
the purchase of Louisiana, and their descendants have since in- 
sisted that it was a trick of the slave power to keep possession of 
the Government. So as they had opposed the purchase of Louis- 
iana in 1803, they also opposed the admission of that State into 
the Union in 1811. 

After the election of Mr. Monroe in 1816, by an overwhelming 
majority over the candidates of the Federal party, the Federalists 
saw that all their attempts to contend successfully against the 
victorious Democrats were perfectly futile, and the party grew 
weaker at each succeeding election. They finally concluded to 
drop the old name and give up the inglorious contest. 

From that time they never nominated any candidates for office, 
and a few years afterwards it was difficult to find a person who 
would admit that he had ever been one of the old Federal party. 
Mr. Monroe was elected in 1820 without any opposition except 
in Massachusetts. But the old Federal leaders, in giving up their 
organization, did not abandon their feelings of envy, revenge and 
animosity. As they had found they could not rule, they deter- 
mined to ruin if possible. And what course did they take in or- 
der to accomplish it? They determined to array the North 
against the South on the slavery question. So in 1818, when the 
bill to enable Missouri to form a State Constitution was intro- 
duced, they succeeded in forming a Northern party, which stood 
shoulder to shoulder against the admission of Missouri as a State. 
As Missouri was a portion of the original province of Louisiana, 
the inhabitants, as a matter of course, held slaves. The oppo- 
nents of her admission introduced in the House of Representa- 
tives the following proviso, amongst others of the kind : "All 
children of slaves born within the said State of Missouri after the 
admission thereof into the Union, shall be free, but may he held 



PACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. • 19 

to service until the age of twenty-five years, and the further in- 
troduction of slavery or involuntary servitude is prohibited except 
for the punishment of crime." What act could have exhibited 
more clearly the cloven-foot of Disunionisra. The very introduc- 
tion of such a condition at that time showed a cool and calculating 
determination to break up and dissolve the (Jovernment which 
they could not control for the benefit of the Federal party. 

Illinois was admitted at the same session, and she was positive- 
ly required to submit to the prohibitory clause of the Ordinance 
of 1787, and the Southern members made no opposition to her 
admission; therefore, it seemed doubly unfair and insulting to- 
wards the South when the Northern members attempted to compel 
Missouri to emancipate her slaves, as there was no reasonable 
ground for such a demand. 

The reader should recollect that at the time we are speaking of. 
in 1818, the population of the North and South was not far from 
an equality. Virginia was still about equal to New York, and 
was stronger than any one of the other States. The great North- 
west Territory, including Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, then con- 
tained only about a half a million of white inhabitants, and prob- 
ably also, half a million of discontented, unruly Jndians. Now 
it contains ten millions of white inhabitants, with no Indians to 
disturb them. At that time there were no railroads, no telegraph 
wires, and very few steamboats. If the Northern people then had 
continued to insist on the emancipation of the slaves in Missouri, 
•nd had thus prevented its admission into the Union, there is no 
doubt that the angry contention of that period would have caused 
a separation of the Union into two great parts. This was the 
aim of the old Disunion leaders of the Federal party. Mr. Quin- 
cy and his associates had found that they could never hope to elect 
one of their party as President; could never hope to obtain con- 
trol of the Government, and could not create a party sufficiently 
strong to accomplish secession in the North, so they changed their 
strategy. They gave up the name of Federalists, and went to 
work upon the anti-slavery feeling of the Northern people, hoping 
thus to drive the South out of the Union. Why did they want to 
get rid of the South ? It was because the old Federal leaders 



20 • WASUINGTON'6 PROPHECY, OR 

hoped that they would then be able to control the Government for 
their own benefit. They did not wish to be troubled with any 
more Jeffersons, Madisons, or Monroes. They knew very weU 
that if the South should then secede or separate from the North, 
it would be absolutely impossible to conquer it by force, and use- 
less to attempt it; therefore they calculated to let it go. 

From the biography of Henry Clay, published at New York in 
1831, we probably gather more correct ideas of the Missouri ques- 
tion than from any other source. His biographer says : "From 
the first introduction of this unhappy topic into the House of Rep- 
resentatives, .Mr. Clay, who at one rapid glance foresaw all its fear- 
ful consequences, took a decided and active part against the re- 
striction that was insisted upon by the Northern members. Al- 
though himself a slaveholder, no one regretted more than he the 
existence of slavery in the United States. But he believed tluit 
the Constitution had wisely withheld from Congress all power over 
the subject except in the Northwest Territory, and the States to be 
formed in it. He believed that any remedy that might be desired 
could only be adopted by the States in which slavery existed. He 
even said that if he was a citizen of Missouri he would favor the 
emancipation of slaves in that State. Still, said he, ' that is a 
matter for the people of Missouri to determine. We have no 
right to force our opinions upon her people.' *' 

The above named proviso or condition was debated at great 
length and with much warmth in the House of Representatives, 
and was finally adopted by a majority consisting entirely of mem- 
bers from the non-slaveholding States. The Northern anti-slavery 
party had thus, as soon as they found they had a majority in one 
House of Congress sufficient to keep Missouri out of the Union, 
determined to forget all the liberality and generosity of the South- 
ern statesmen, and show how meanly and despicably they could 
exhibit their own narrowness and bigotry. In the Senate the re- 
stricting clause was stricken out, and the Senate passed the bill 
to admit Missouri without requiring her to emancipate the slaves. 
Each House adhered to its own opinion; the bill to admit Mis- 
souri was defeated, and the session terminated without any set- 
tlement of the question. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 21 

During the following summer and fall, the Union, from .Nuine 
to Louisiana, and from the Atlantic to the extreme boundaries of 
the Givat West, was fearfully agitated. Iu the midst of a general 
tumult the session of 1819 and '20 commenced. Never before 
had the Houses of Congress been so excited. Mr. Clay Bpo 
one time four hours, with an eloquence never yet exceeded. His 
mighty influence was exerted to its utmost against the policy of 
the anti-slavery faction. In voting, on every occasion it was 
found that the majority in the Senate was in favor of admitting 
Missouri unconditionally, while in jhe lower House the majority 
just as tenaciously adhered to their former policy. Finally, through 
the agencies of committees of conference, a compromise was 
agreed upon. According to this Compromise, Missouri was re- 
ceived into the Union without requiring her to abolish slavery, but 
in order to obtain enough votes ,in the lower House to admit her, 
the Southern members agreed that "in all that Territory ceded 
by France tfo the United States, under the name of Louisiana, 
which lies north of thirty-six degrees and' thirty minutes, and 
which is not included in the State of Missouri, slavery and invol- 
untary servitude, (except as a punishment for crime) is forever 
abolished; Provided, always, that any person escaping into the 
same from whom service or labor is lawfully claimed in any State or 
Territory of the United States, such fugitive may be lawfully re- 
claimed and conveyed to the persons claiming his or her labor as 
aforesaid." Here we see that the Southern members of Congress 
rather than leave the Union at that time, which they might have 
done without any fear of consequences, consented to give up all the 
Louisiana purchase lying north of 36 deg. 30 min. That part 
which they then gave up comprised fully two-thirds of the whole 
Territory, and contains now the States of Kansas, Nebraska 
Iowa, and Oregon, besides largo and extensive territories. 

In order to satisfy the demands of a few of the Northern mem- 
bers, and induce them to vote for the admission of Missouri, it 
became necessary for the South to sacrifice her claims upon the 
largest portion of the Territories. 

But even this did not satisfy the more obstinate and radical por 
tion of the Northern members. The Compromise was supported 
—2 



22 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

by a majority in both Houses, but a large majority of the North- 
ern members voted against the Compromise, and were willing to 
let the Union be dissolved rather than yield a single inch of 
ground, or vote for any Compromise whatever. The dispute con- 
cerning Missouri lasted two full years, and was not finally settled 
until February, 1821 ; and on the final vote, 87 members voted 
for compromise and for the bill admitting Missouri, while 81 voted 
against it, of whom upwards of seventy were Northern members. 
This was the vote in the lower House. The Senate gave a large 
majority in favor of the admission of Missouri. Were those 
Northern .Congressmen, who voted against the Compromise and 
against the admission of Missouri, true friends of the Union ? If 
they were, why did they still vote against the admission of Mis- 
souri after the Compromise bill had passed, $nd when they knew 
that if their policy prevailed the Union must be forever broken 
up ? 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 23 



CHAPTER IV. 

WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT? 

As the reader already knows, it was negro slavery that wae 
subject of contention. How did it first originate, and why did 
not our fathers abolish it? These questions will form the subject 
of consideration in the present chapter. 

History teaches us that the importation of negroes from Africa 
commenced shortly after the discovery of America. That the 
first negroes brought to our country arrived about the year 1630. 
That the governments of England, France, Spain, Portugal, Hol- 
land, and others, openly sanctioned, licensed, ami encouraged the 
slave trade. That all the English Colonies in America, including 
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and all the New England 
Colonies, held slaves. The negroes were bought, sold, bequeathed 
to heirs or given to the children of their masters, just like other 
chattel property. In Massachusetts the slaves were set free by 
act of Legislature in 1780, while the Americans were still strug- 
gling for independence against the power of Great Britain. The 
other States did not commence emancipation until 1788, and at 
the time when the Constitution was formed in 1787, twelve of th« 
States held slaves, and none but Massachusetts had freed them. 
In the whole Union, the slaves composed only about one-fifth of 
the population. In 18G0 the slaves composed about one eighth 
or less. 

During the war of the Revolution British Generals had attempt- 
ed to incite the slaves against their masters, by promising them 
freedom under British protection, but they were not very success- 
ful!, and when the treaty of peace was made by which Great 
Britain acknowledged our independence, she agreed to pay to the 
owners of slaves the full value of the slaves which had been taken 
away by her armies. 



2-4 -Washington's prophecy, or 

In those days the slave trade was still continued, and it was not 
considered an unchristian or immoral practice for church members 
even in New England to hold slaves. Merchants and ship-owners, 
also, fitted out slave-ships to bring negroes from Africa, and sell 
them to Southern planters. Undoubtedly it now appears a most 
horrible and cruel practice. Yet the most civilized and enlight- 
ened and Christian nation in the world licensed the practice until 
after the commencement of the present century. Wilberforce 
seems to have been the first British statesman who attempted to 
exert an influence in Parliamen^against it. Undoubtedly Eng- 
land and France have sincerely repented of their sins in this par- 
ticular, and are now righteous. 

When the United States Constitution was formed, an attempt 
was made to give Congress power to stop the importation of 
slaves into the States. Under the Articles of Confederation, 
Congress had no control over that question, and some of the mem- 
bers of the Convention in 1787 desired to confer that power upon 
the new Congress under the Constitution. Some of the States 
refused to join the new Union on those terms, and that question 
nearly prevented the Constitution from being agreed upon. By 
compromise it was finally agreed that during the succeeding twenty 
years, Congress should have no power to stop the African slave 
trade, but that from the commencement of the year 1808 Congress 
should have that power. Therefore, the African slave trade, with 
all its horrors, was actually carried on for twenty years after the 
Constitution was formed, and Congress had no power to prevent 
it. 

Suppose one of the radicals of that day had commenced an at- 
tack upon Dr. Franklin for consenting to the continuance of such 
a horrid traffic. The Doctor would have said, "My dear sir, what 
better could you have done? Has the Congress of the Confeder- 
ation any power to stop the traffic ? Is it at all likely that they 
would ever get that power? Can Massachusetts compel all the 
other States to do is she thinks best? Of course not. What 
would you do? "Would you leave the li/im? Would that measure 
stop the other States fiom continuing the slave trade? Not at 
all. Whicb, then, is the best for us to do — adopt the Constitution 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 

giving Congress power to stop the horrid traffic at the end of 
twenty years, or leave things just as they are, and let the other 
States carry on the traffic fifty, or perhaps an hundred years, in- 
stead of twenty ?" 

It seems plain that in this debate the venerable philosopher 
would have the best of the argument. But such arguments as 
these did not satisfy the obstinate radicals of Massachusetts, for 
when they finally voted on the adoption of the Constitution, Mas- 
sachusetts only gave a bare majority for the Constitution, while 
South Carolina gave it a very large majority; thus showing that 
in 1788, South Carolina was a stronger Union State than M 
chusctts. No doubt the Sewards, the Sumner?, Wilsons, and 
Chandlers of the present day would be glad if they could blot out 
and destroy all the evidences of the facts of our early national 
history ; but it cannot be blotted out. The indubitable facts re- 
main printed upon every page of history up to 1860. 

Thoughtless persons at the present day often seem shocked at 
the circumstance, that our fathers framed a constitution which 
actually protected or tolerated the odious African slave trade for 
twenty years. Clear heads, on the contrary, can see that the Con- 
stitution never protected the traffic, and never was, in the least 
degree, responsible for its existence or continuance. What do 
you say? say the radicals. If the Constitution tolerated or per- 
mitted the traffic for twenty years, then it must have protected it 
and been responsible for its continuance. Not so, my friend. The 
framers of the Constitution desired to form a more perfect Union 
than that which then existed. There was no possible remedy for any 
of the existing evils under the Confederation, therefore any bene- 
fit gained by forming a new Union might be counted as clear 
gain. If one State could not get a Constitution framed to please 
all her people, which in fact could not be hoped for, yet, if she 
could get one that was in any degree better than the old system, 
she should not reject it because she did not get all she desired. 
In order to form a Union of any kind between States it was nec- 
essary that the Articles of Union should be agreed to by all the 
States composing that Union. A part of the States could not 
form a Union with Articles to suit themselves, and then forci 



26 Washington's prophecy, or 

the other States to submit to them. They had no men or money 
to spare in bloody contests for coercion. Besides, at that time, 
such a course was acknowledged to be contrary to the very nature 
of our Union, and to every principle of self-government. There- 
fore it was considered that all the States which should become 
members of the Union, should come in freely of their own accord, 
so that the Union should be harmonious. Eleven of the States 
ratified the Constitution and enrolled themselves as members of 
the Union between the months of September, 1787, and March* 
1789. Those eleven elected Washington as President, and sent 
members to the first Congress in New York City. 

Rhode Island refused to send any delegates to the Convention 
which framed the Constitution, and also refused to come into the 
Union under it. She seems to have had some idea of remaining 
an independent nation, all alone. But finally, in 1790, she changed 
her mind and assumed her place in the Union, being the last of 
the old thirteeen. North Carolina, also, at first refused, but came 
in before Rhode Island. 

As the reader has undoubtedly discovered the Constitution 
positively forbade Congress from interfering with the African or 
foreign slave trade in any of the States then existing until 1808; 
by plain implication it was understood that from and after the be- 
ginning of 1808, Congress should have power to prohibit it in all 
the States. 

The four New England States might have formed a Union of 
their own, and they might have given their Congress power to 
stop the slave traffic immediately within their own limits. But if 
they had so done they could not have stopped New York or New Jer- 
sey from importing slaves ; and as to the slave trade on their own 
coast in Massachusetts, Rhole Island, and New Hampshire, they 
could stop it at any time by State laws, without going through 
the form of giving the power to Congress or any Other agent. 

As avc have previously remarked, Massachusetts freed her 
slaves in 1780. Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York followed her example 
at various periods, from 1788 up to 182G, when the last of the 
•laves in New York received freedom. As a matter of course, 



FACTS CONCERNING* THE REBELLION. 27 

during all that rferiod warm debates and discussions as to the 
profitableness of slave labor, and the justice or injustice of slave 
holding, were continued and kept up in.th.ose States. During that 
period the writers and orators of those States found it so profita- 
ble and popular to declaim against slavery, that it finally became 
impossible to find an individual who would risk his popularity by 
opposing emancipation. 

Many of the masters, on finding that they were likely to lose 
their slaves, carried them away to Maryland, Virginia, or Del- 
aware, and sold them for good prices, then returned home and 
joined in the universal outcry against the unpopular institution. 
As a natural consequence of the speeches, sermons, and writings 
published against slavery in the North during all the aforesaid 
period, it became a settled opinion of the Northern mind that 
slave-holding was morally wrong. But the excitement and agita- 
tion which threatened the complete dissolution of the Union in 
1819 and 1820, rather checked the violence of the anti-slavery 
men for a few years after that period. The people generally loved 
the Union too well to sacrifice it for an abstract principle. So, 
from 1821 to 1833, the Northern statesmen and writers generally 
spoke of slavery as an institution with which they had nothing to 
do. They generally admitted, that as members of the Union and 
American citizens it was not best to attempt forcing their opin- 
ions upon the Southern people. 

Thus it came to be common for Northern citizens and statesmen 
to avoid all public discussion of the question, and to use such 
language as this : "We must let this question alone." "It is one 
that is too dangerous to be publicly agitated." "There is great 
danger that we may destroy the Union." "Besides, it is a ques- 
tion that does not concern us." " We have no slaves here at 
home, and if slavery is an evil and a wrong, we are not accounta- 
ble or responsible for it." Such was the opinion expressed by 
Daniel Webster, Millard Filmore, and all the great statesmen of 
the North, from 1820 to 1860. 

The arguments generally used by anti-slavery men were such 
as the following : Slave-holding is morally wrong, because it can 
not be right to hold any human being as property. Again, the 



28 Washington's prophecy, or 

Declaration of Independence declares that all men are created 
equal. Then (he practice of slave-holding leads to a vast amount 
of immoral intercourse between the black and white races. In 
later years they added other complaints. Amongst them was the 
assertion that negro slavery tended to build up a haughty, purse- 
proud aristocracy. Then it was also argued that many masters 
and overseers treated the slaves with great cruelty and inhumani- 
ty. That they were inhumanly whipped and otherwise cruelly 
treated, and often abused when innocent of any crime or disobe- 
dience. That this was the fact in many instances cannot be de- 
nied. There are cruel and inhuman individuals in all States and 
countries. It is also true that the books, stories, and novels print- 
ed in the North on this subject greatly exaggerated the facts, and 
often invented the most false and unfounded tales of negro suffer- 
ing. The writers of novels, in order to derive profit from their 
books, will not confine themselves to the truth, but generally 
strive to invent that which will make the book sell. 

As to the immorality and cruelty so often reiterated in the ears 
of Northern people by the Anti-Slavery party in order to excite 
prejudice and hostility against the South, it is evident that hor- 
rid crimes, cruel murders, and immoral practices have always been 
as common and numerous in the North as in the South. Is there 
no drunkenness, no gambling, no prostitution in the North ? No 
profane swearing even amongst small children ; no adulteries, no 
incest, nor sodomy, nor rape, nor cold-blooded, premeditated mur- 
ders, no counterfeiting nor horse stealing? Do we keep holy the 
Sabbath day? Have we no railroad trains nor steamboats dis- 
turbing the quiet of the Sabbath 'by the thundering of their ma- 
chinery? Have we no street cars with their conductors, drivers 
and horses, laboring for money as severely on that day as- any 
other, contrary to all Christian principles? Can Ave pretend that 
the exceedingly virtuous, moral, and upright character of our 
Northern people is a bright and "shining example to the rest of the 
civilized world? Have we not heard of crimes committed in our 
cities which were so revolting and disgustingly filthy that the 
printers of daily papers refused to set the types that described 
the details ? These questions but merely hint at a small portion 



FACTS CONCERNING* THE REBELLION. 29 

of the black hearted depravity which is known to exist in our 
country, North as well as South. But they should cause the big- 
oted sectionalist to think twice before he indulges too freely in his 
usual tirade against the people of other sections. 

Then as to the assertion that slave-holding is in itself morally 
wrong, it cannot be sustained. When we wish to ascertain wheth- 
er any practice is morally wrong, we are ultimately driven to the 
Bible for decision. If we lay aside the Bible, then the opinion of 
one individual is precisely as much entitled to respect as that of 
another. One may hold the opinion that a certain practice ia 
wrong, and he may point to the thousands or millions who agree 
with him. Another individual may believe that same practice is 
right, and may point to the thousands and millions who believe 
precisely as he does. Where shall we go in order to decide the 
question? The Christian world acknowledges that the Bible is 
the only safe-guide to a decision. So we presume murder, theft, 
adultery, sodomy, and incest to be wrong. Why not adopt the 
same rule as to slave-holding? If we are Christians we are bound 
by its. decision. If we are infidels, then we must admit that we 
have no infallible guide, and that our own opinions, which are as 
changeable as the wind, are not to be taken as the true criterion 
on moral questions. 

Of course the Christian must accept the Bible as the umpire. 
We turn to Moses, and we find that slave-holding was not only 
tolerated, but sanctioned by the law of the old dispensation. Le- 
viticus and Deuteronomy will prove it beyond all doubt. Then, 
in the New Testament, the clearest proof that can be adduced 
either pro or con, is the course and conduct of Paul. We have 
the plainest evidence from history that slavery existed throughout 
all the Roman dominions in the first century of Christianity. 
Paul traveled and preached the Gospel in many countries and 
cities. He taught the whole doctrine of Christianity so far as he 
understood it, and probably his doctrine was as correct as that of 
any other teacher of the sublime system. He preached without 
fear, and proclaimed the curse of Deity against the most popular 
and common vices of the age and country. He did not scruple to 
declare that impurity of heart and life as well as the more flagrant 



20 Washington's prophecy, or 

ciimes should exclude the individual from the church and from 
heaven. His farewell letter, when about to be executed on the 
cross at Kome, shows that he had done his whole duty; that he 
gloried in what he had done, and his conscience was clear as that 
of any martyr to the glorious cause. 

Well, how did Paul dispose of the slavery question while en- 
gaged in teaching Christianity to the nations? Did he say to the 
master,, one of your first Christian duties is to emancipate your 
slaves? Did he say to the converted slave, your Christian master 
is now required to make you free? Not a word of it. He gave 
to the Christian master lessons on benevolence and kindness to 
his slaves, but never said to him, it is wrong to hold these persons 
as slaves. He instructed the poor down-trodden slaves to be obe- 
dient to their masters, faithful in the performance of all duties, 
and, if possible, morefaithful if the master was also a Christian. 
And only once in all his writings does he express an opinion as 
to the desirableness of freedom. In that instance he says: "Art 
thou called (or converted) being a servant? Care not for it." 
That is, be contented with your lot. "But if thou mayestbe 
made free, use it rather." Evidently meaning this : "If your 
freedom is offered to you, then you should prefer freedom." 

Again we see him sending the converted runaway Onesimus 
back to his master Philemon, with a letter in which he begs or 
beseeches Philemon to pardon Onesimus. Pardon him for what ? 
Why of course pardon his disobedience. And Paul offers to as- 
sure Philemon that Onesimus would from that time prove a faith- 
ful servant. 

Of course this fact must be very disgusting to the minds of our 
modern radicals. But if Paul, the boldest, most active and most 
enlightened of Christian Reformers, did not know that slave-hold- 
ing was wrong — did not know that Onesimus had a moral right to 
escape from his master — did not know that Philemon was wrong in 
keeping slaves — then we are completely in the dark as to whether 
Paul had a right to teach Christianity or not. 

These facts are produced here, not in order to prove that slave- 
holding is right, but with the view of showing the inconsistency 
of those who, because they do not desire to hold slaves themselves, 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 31 

therefore assume the privilege of judging what is right and wrong 
for their neighbors, taking their own feelings as the rule by which 
to judge their neighbors. But if it were proved by the very 
words of the Bible, that slave-holding is actually an immoral and 
unchristian practice, yet the radicals had no good excuse for con- 
tinuing to agitate the question after they had abolished slavery in 
their own respective States. • 

One of the main leading principles of our Union consisted in 
the right of each State to make its own laws on all subjects which 
were not really delegated to Congress by the Constitution. The 
tenth of the amending Articles reads as follows : "All powers 
uot delegated to the United States by this Constitution, nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States, are hereby reserved to the States re- 
spectively, or to the people." The plain and clear meaning of this 
is, that* Congress and the President have no powers, except those 
delegated to them by the Constitution ; and that the States have 
the right to exercise any power that can be mentioned or thought 
of except those which they voluntarily gave up when they joined 
the Union. Of course they never reserved the right of secession, 
because they are bound to obey the Constitution and laws of the 
United States, and they are bound to preserve a Republican form 
of Government. If allowed to secede, then some other form of 
government might be established. But the Constitution binds all 
the States to guarrantee to each State a Republican form of Gov- 
ernment, even if the people of one or more States should choose 
to "establish a monarchy. Of course, by the terms of the Union, 
that kind of government which Washington and his coadjutors 
considered Republican, is all that is necessary in order to- fulfill 
the conditions of the Constitution. It cannot be possible that the 
people of one-third of the States are bound to change the form of 
their State Governments merely because the other two-thirds have 
changed their opinions as to what a Republican form really was. 
It would be sufficient to say, " That form of government which 
was considered Republican by Washington and the founders of 
the Union, is all that is necessary in order to fulfill our s obliga- 
tions." Therefore, a change of opinion in one or more States does 
not bind us to change also. 



32 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

Now, as the original States never gave up, or delegated to 
Congress the right to control their domestic institutions, and as 
all the States except those of the Northwest Territory were ad- 
mitted into the Union with the same rights as the original States; 
therefore, with the exception of those five States, all have the 
right to decide for themselves whether they will tolerate slavery 
or not. Again : as the • States never gave up nor delegated to 
Congress the right to define or punish crime against the individ- 
ual States, therefore, the States have the right, and have always 
exercised the right, to make their own laws concerning crimes and 
punishments within their own limits. Some States have one kind 
of laws for punishing crime, while others have a different kind. 
If one State should choose to punish murder by a few days or 
hours of imprisonment, and hang the person who burns a build- 
ing, while another State hangs the murderer and lets the'house- 
burner go free, Congress has no authority over the question. And 
why not? Because that power is not delegated to Congress by 
the Constitution. 

Again : as the States never gave up nor delegated to Congress 
the right to say who shall or shall not vote within the States ; 
therefore, the States have always exercised the right to make their 
own laws on that subject. Consequently, some States allow none 
to vote but white male persons of twenty-one years and upwards. 
Others allow negroes to vote at twenty-one. Some States require 
the voter to reside six months in the State before voting; others 
require a residence of one or two years. 

Thus, if Massachusetts should pass a law permitting women 
and children to vote, the other States would have no reason to 
complain, unless she, according to her usual custom, attempts to 
enforce them to follow her example. If any State should see 
proper to allow all persons above the age of fifteen years to vote, 
Congress could have no ground for interfering, because there is 
nothing in the Constitution forbidding it. 

Does the reader ask for proof? Let him examine the National 
Constitution from beginning to end, and he wiil be satisfied. The 
same may be said in regard to the establishment of State and 
County Courts, the qualifications of witnesses and jurors, Judges 
and Attorneys. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 33 

Tlic ?;imc may also be said in regard to schools, churches, and 

literary institutions of every kind. Congress has no control 
over tlicni when located within a State. 

A State may establish a system of religious worship within its 
own limits, and compel all her citizens to support it. The State 
of Massachusetts established the worship of the Congregational 
Church, and compelled all her citizens to support it. She contin- 
ued to do so for nearly forty years after the National Constitution 
was established. She had then, and still has, a perfect right to 
do so if the majority of her citizens think best, because it was an 
original sovereign right before she came into the Union, and she 
never gave up nor relinquished that right. Thus a State has a 
right to make laws concerning religion, but Congress can n< 

A* State may pass laws abridging the freedom of speech and of 
the press, but Congress can not, excepting in the District of Co- 
lumbia, i As to the fact that Congress caunot abridge the freedom 
of speech or of the press within any State, see the first Article of 
the Amendments. Congress can legislate for the District of Co- 
lumbia on all subjects whatsoever. Congress can make laws to 
punish persons who rob the United States mails or post-offices, 
eveu in any of the States. It can also make laws to punish per- 
sons who counterfeit United States coins or securities, such as 
bonds or Treasury notes. But Congress can not make laws to 
punish the person who commits a murder,, a robbery, or other 
crime that is not placed under their control by the Constitution 
itself. For the same reason Congress can not make laws to pun- 
ish persons who counterfeit State bonds or securities, or the notes 
of a Bank established by State authority. This bel.ngs to the 
powers of the State itself. 

•in we remark, the Governor of a State can pardon the per- 
son convicted of a crime against the State laws, if the Constitu- 
tion of his State allows him so to do; but when a person is con- 
victed within a State of any crime against the laws of Congress, 
then the President may pardon him, but the Governor can not. 

It should be remembered that the United States Constitution is 
the supreme law of the land to protect State rights against Con- 
gressional or Executive usurpation, as well as to give lawful au- 
thority to Congress and the President. 



84 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

All the power that Congress has is delegated to it by the Constitu- 
tion. It can not lawfully claim or exercise any other powers be- 
sides, because Congress itself was created by the Constitution, 
and that body might as well claim that the Mormon Bible can give 
them new powers, as to claim one iota of power of any kind be- 
sides those given to them by the Constitution. For the same rea- 
son a President of the United States can not claim one particle of 
power besides those delegated to him by the Constitution. If he 
has any other power, where does he obtain it? Does he get it 
from the Mahometan Koran, the Code Napoleon, or from some 
other source? • Every one must see that as the Constitution cre- 
ated the office of President, and made him an agent or delegate of 
the people by delegating to him certain specified powers, if he ex- 
ercises any other powers he becomes a usurper as Cassar and Na- 
poleon did before him. 

It is easily seen from the foregoing remarks that in all ques- 
tions of religion and morality, each State decides for itself wheth- 
er it will tolerate or prohibit any particular practice. The people 
of one State may prohibit the sale of lottery tickets, believing it 
tt> be wrong. But the people of other States are not bound to 
follow the example unless they see fit. Many people profess to 
believe that all theatrical performances ought to be prohibited. 
They have an undoubted right to procure such prohibition in their 
own State, but Congress has no right to make such prohibition 
within any State. Again, there are large numbers of our citizens 
who profess to believe that the manufacture and sale of spirituous 
liquors should be prohibited by law. All the efforts of Temper- 
ance organizations to abolish intemperance seem to have failed. 
We might assert that Congress ought to check the gigantic evii, 
especially as it is a national one. But Congress and the Presi- 
dent can not make any law on the subject except within the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

The people of Massachusetts might abolish the evil in that Stat* 
if they chose, and so might any other State. The people of each 
State might find sufficient employment for their' philanthropy 
within the limits of their own respective States, and if they should 
turn their attention to those subjects they would find very little 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 35 

spare time or money for the purpose of reforming their neighbors 
in other. States. The extreme and intense advocate of total absti- 
nence may think and say that the National Constitution is wrong, 
because it did not give Congress power to abolish intemperance. 
On the same principle the Roman Catholic might say it is wrong 
because it does not. abolish heresy. The Jew might also assert 
that it is wrong because it does not prohibit the use of pork, 
which is an abomination in his eyes. On all these questions there 
are differences of opinion. The advocate of total abstinence might 
assert that no State has a right to do wrong, and if the Constitu- 
tion protects any State in the right to manufacture or sell intoxi- 
cating drinks, then we are not bound to obey it. He might say, 
u There is a 'higher law' than the Constitution, and we must act 
according to the dictates of conscience; therefore, if we choose, 
we may by force and violence seize and destroy or conceal the 
property of those who are doing wrong." Such was the conclu- 
sion of John Brown, and such the teaching of the anti-slavery 
men who mobbed the officers and rescued the fugitive slaves in 
various parts of the North. 

Every individual who attempted to argue against the violent 
"Higher Law" policy of those men, even if he himself was in 
principle opposed to slavery, was always called a pro-slavery 
Democrat, or pro-slavery Whig, or Dough-face, a Union- saver, etc. 
Such were the names bestowed by the Anti- Slavery party upon 
Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, and others who opposed the 
revolutionary schemes of the Abolitionists in 1840, 1850, and 
1860. 



WASHINGTON S PROPHECY, OR 



CHAPTER V. 

ERRONEOUS IDEAS OF STATE SOVEREIGNTY. 

Since the year 1860, many distinguished persons have under- 
taken to convince the people that the States have no sovereign 
rights, and that this doctrine is a dangerous heresy, and was the 
cause of the rebellion. They pretend that they can not under 
stand how a State can possess original, sovereign rights without 
also possessing the right to secede from the Union; or, in other 
words, they pretend to believe that the doctrine of State Sover- 
eignty over its own domestic institutions means the same s as the 
right to secede from the Union. 

Amonjjr the notable characters who have made attacks in the 
public journals upon the doctrine of State Eights and State Sov- 
ereignty is the Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts. His 
celebrated article in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1863, on 
the subject of ''Our Domestic Relations," is supposed by his par- 
ty to be perfectly unanswerable in its arguments against the theory 
of State Rights. 

A brief review of his argument may not be considered out of 
place in this little work. 

Mr. Sumner says: "In the exercise of its sovereignty, Con- 
gress is entrusted with large and peculiar powers. Take notice 
of them and you will see how little of sovereignty is left to the 
States. Their simple enumeration is an argument against the 
pretensions of State Eignts. Congress may lay and collect taxes, 
duties, imposts, and excises :o pay the debts and provide for the 
common defence and geuer d welfare of the United States; regu- 
late commerce with foreign nations, and among the several- States, 
and with the Indian tribes; establish a uniform rule of naturali- 



FACTS CONCERNING TIIE REBELLION. 37 

zation, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, throughout 
the United States ; coin money; regulate the value thereof; and 
fix the standard of weights and measures; establish post-offices 
and post-roads; promote the progress of science and the useful 
arts by securing for limited periods to authors and'inventors the 
exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries : de- 
fine and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, 
and- offenses against the laws of nations; grant letters of marque 
and reprisal; make rules concerning captures on land and water; 
raise and support armies ; provide and maintain a navy ; make 
rules for the government and regulation of the land anil naval 
forces; provide for calling forth the militia, to execute the laws 
of the Union; suppress insurrections and repel invasions ; pro- 
vide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service 
of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the 
appointment of officers and the authority of training the militia, 
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress, and make all 
laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the fore- 
going powers, and all other powers vested in the Government of 
the United States." 

Mr. Sumner then says: "With the concession of these pow- 
ers to the United States, there seems to be little left for the sev- 
eral States." 

He seems to forget that he has admitted that State Rights and 
State Sovereignty did exist before the Constitution was formed. 
That they were publicly declared in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence in 1776, and in the Articles of Confederation in 1778, al- 
though Mr. Sumner plainly intimates that he thinks it was wrong. 
We might ask Mr. Sumner what plan he would have taken if he had 
been alive in 1778, to have compelled the States to relinquish 
their pretensions to sovereignty ? Perhaps, if he had been in 
Washington's place, he might have invented some plan to compel 
or persuade the States to give up the claim of sovereignty. But 
alas! Mr. Sumner was not there to do this, and so the wicked, 
unmanageable States openly, publicly, and solemnly declared in the 
second Article of the Confederation that they were sovereign States. 
—3 



38 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

Now, if the States were undeniably sovereign from 1778 to 
1780, then the question arises, what power is it that constitutes 
sovereignty? If you examine the Articles of Confederation you 
find that, while the States were still sovereign, the Congress of 
the Confederation had power to determine on peace and war, send- 
ing and receiving embassadors; entering into treaties and allian 
ces ; establishing rules for deciding in all cases what captures on 
land and water were legal; grant letters of marque and reprisal, 
in times of peace; appointing courts for the trial of piracies and 
felonies on the high seas; and establishing courts for receiving 
and determining, finally, appeals in all cases of captures. 

Congress was also declared to be the last resort, on appeal, in 
all disputes between the^States concerning boundary, jurisdiction, 
or any other cause whatever. 

Under those Articles Congress also had the sole and exclusive 
right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck 
by their own authority, or by that of the respective States ; 
fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the 
United States; regulating the trade and managing all affairs with 
the Indians;- establishing and regulating post-offices; appointing 
all officers of the land forces in the service of the United StateSj 
except regimental officers ; appointing all officers of the naval 
forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of 
the United States ; also, making rules for the government of the 
land and naval forces, and directing their operation. 

Under the Articles of Confederation the Congress had the power 
to appoint a Committee of the States, consisting of one member 
from each State, to act during the recess of Congress, to assess the 
necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United 
States, and to apply the same for defraying the public expenses ; 
to borrow money or emit bills on the credit of the United States ; 
tp build and equip a navy; to agree upon the number of the land 
forces, and to make requisitions upon each Sta'te, which requisi- 
tion shall bo binding. 

By these si^me Articles it was declared that " every State shall 
■ by the determination of the United States in Congress as- 
sembled, on all questions, which, by this Confederation, are sub- 



PACTS CONCERNING TIIE REBELLION. 39 

mitted to them, and the Articles of Confederation shall be invio- 
lably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual. "' 

It was also declared by the same Articles, that " no State, 
without the consent of the United States, shall send any embassy 
to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, 
agreement, alliance, or treaty with any king, prince, or State." 

"No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confedera- 
tion, or alliance whatever, between them, without the consent of 
the United States in Congress assembled." 

" No State shall lay any imposts or duties, which may inter- 
fere with any stipulations in treaties entered into by the United 
States in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or State." 

"No vessels of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any 
State, except such number only as shall be deemed necessary by 
the United States in Congress assembled, nor shall any body of 
forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such num- 
ber only as in the judgment of the United States in Congress 
assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts neces- 
sary for the defense, of such State." 

" No State shall engage in war, without the consent of the 
United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actu- 
ally invaded by enemies." 

"Nor shall any State grant commissions to any ship or vessel 
of war, nor letters of marque and reprisal, except it be after a 
declaration of war by the United States in Congress assembled, 
and then only against the kingdom or State, and the subjects 
thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such 
regulations as shall be established by the United States in Con- 
gress assembled." 

We might say, like Mr. Sumner, that after all these concessions 
made by the States to the General Government, there seems to 
be little left to the States. All these concessions were actually 
made to Congress in the Articles of Confederation, as the Arti- 
cles themselves will show, and yet in the second Article, the sov- 
.:>ity ct" the States is declare 1. 
•v, as Mr. Sumner insists that the States relinquished their 
sovereignty by adopting the Constitution instead of tie Confed- 



40 Washington's prophecy, or 

cration, we would be glad to know precisely what power consti- 
tutes sovereignty. 

There were a few powers retained by the States under the Con- 
federation which they relinquished when they ratified the Consti- 
tution. Under those Articles the States had power to coin mon- 
ey and emit bills of credit, and in the Constitution they relin- 
quished those two powers. If by so doing they lost their sover- 
eignty, then we may at last decide what constitutes sovereignty. 
Perhaps they lost their sovereignty by making the Constitution 
the " supreme law of the land." But in the Articles of Confed- 
eration they were also bound to abide by the determination of 
the United States, and declared that the " Articles of Confedera- 
tion shall be inviolably observed by every State." So that the 
only difference as to the supremacy of the two documents consists 
in a mere change of the language. The States, then, possessed 
sovereignty, although the Articles were, in fact, the supreme law 
of the land. 

There were many things that the States at that time could not 
do, because the Articles forbade them. And on all these ques- 
tions they were bound by the Articles. Yet, at the same time, 
they claimed to be sovereign States, and no power denied it after 
Great Britain had acknowledged their independence. If Massa- 
chusetts is so tired of enjoying her own State rights, why does 
she not propose to relinquish all her claims to State rights? Oh, 
the horrible doctrine of State Rights ! One might be led to sup- 
pose that Massachusetts was so terrified and disgusted at finding 
herself called a sovereign State, that she really wished to get out 
of the Union, so that she might surrender her sovereignty. But 
we must beg the old Bay State not to be alarmed. If the doc- 
trine of State Sovereignty be such a horrible one, such a danger- 
ous heresy, be pleased to remember it has been taught as a true 
theory by your favorite sons in former years. We will merely 
mention one of them. In the year 1840, Judge Story, of that 
State, wrote an excellent book of comments on the Constitution 
of the United States. He dedicated it to the people of the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts. He was not a member of the 
Democratic party, but a co-laborer with Adams, Webster, and 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 41 

Everett. But he, a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, in publishing a book intended for the instruction of his 
fellow-citizens, concerning all the powers of the Federal Govern- 
ment, actually taught that the doctrine so horrible in the eyes of 
Mr. Sumner — the doctrine of State Sovereignty! Do you de- 
mand the evidence? Then examine Judge Story's book on the 
Constitution, and sec his comments on the organization and duties 
of the Senate. On the 74tli page, speaking of a certain qualifi- 
cations which a Senator must possess, viz: that of being an in- 
habitant of the State he represents, he says: "He will also, per- 
sonally, share more fully in the effects of all measures touching 
the Sovereignty, Rights, and Influence of the State." 

What an ignoramus Judge Story must have been «ccording to 
Mr. Sumner's idea. Poor Judge Story ! What a pity you wrote 
such words before you had the opportunity of reading Mr. Sum- 
ner's article on "Our Domestic Relations!" 



42 Washington's prophecy, or 



CHAPTER VI. 

FOREIGN INFLUENCES AT WORK AGAINST THE UNION. 

After the settlement of the Missouri question in 1821, the 
Union remaned for several years in a truly harmonious condi- 
tion. All parties seemed content to ignore all discussion of the 
slavery question, and to live in peace as friends and brethren of 
one great nation. All Americans were proud of their country ; 
proud of its immense growth; proud of its flag; proud of its ex- 
cellent Government. 

But in the midst of this prosperty and happiness, Satan again 
entered the garden. Anti-Slavery Societies -were formed in Eng- 
land and Scotland, who sent agents to the United States for the 
purpose of lecturing on the wickedness and cruelty of slave- 
holding. The citizens of a country, the mass of whose people 
are ground down to a condition scarcely any better than that of 
negro slaves; a country where the great mass are so poor that 
seven-eights of the»adult male population are prohibited from vo- 
ting on account of their poverty ; those philanthropic individuals 
determined to engage in the work of enlightening the American 
people concerning their duty to the negroes. It truly seemed 
that these ardent admirers of the English system of government 
felt indignant and envious at the happiness of the American peo- 
ple, and determined to make a great effort for its destruction. If 
the destruction of the American Union, with all its blessings, had 
been the aim and study of the most cunning' of British statesmen 
for fifty years, they could not have contrived any other plan so 
likely to succeed as that adopted by those English philanthro- 
pists, who, neglecting the case of their own suffering poor labor- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 43 

ers at home, came to America to preach, lecture, write, and print 
on the subject of slavery. They commenced their labors in Mas- 
sachusetts. In the city of Boston landed the celebrated George 
Thompson, agent of the British Anti-Slavery Society, and in that 
city Mr. Wm. Loyd Garrison established the newspaper called 
the Liberator. They endeavored to work upon the feelings of 
Americans by representing that all civilized Europe looked with 
horror upon the system of negro slavery. 

According to their story, those enlightened European nations 
who had scarcely brushed away the aroma which clung to their 
garments from the detestable slave trade, were awfully exercised 
in their minds because the American people were so cruel as to 
continue to hold as slaves the descendants of those Africans whom 
Europe had kidnapped and dragged to America. By passionate 
appeals to the humanity and benevolence of the New England 
people, these agents succeeded in kindling a flame of fanaticism 
more violent and ferocious than had ever before disturbed them 
since the days of the Salem Witchcraft-insanity. Scarcely any 
of the lecturers or their converts had ever been in a State where 
slavery existed, or knew any thing of the real condition of slaves 
in the South, except from statements as they heard in lectures or 
saw in books or newspapers published for the express purpose of 
exciting pity for the slaves and indignation against the masters. 
As to the probability that, in nine cases out of ten, or ninety- 
nine cases out of the hundred, masters treated their slaves kindly 
and humanely, and that the great mass of theci were really hap- 
pier and better provided for than the two hundred millions of 
white laborers in Europe, and far better than they would ever 
provide for themselves if free, such persons would not believe. In 
1833, '34, and '35, the newly lighted fires of fanaticism began to 
attract attention. The first measure which brought them promi- 
nently before the public mind was the act of sending petitions to 
Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
At the session of '35 and '36, large numbers of those petitions 
were presented to Congress by John Q. Adams. For twelve or 
fifteen years previously, there had been nothing said in Congress 



44 Washington's prophecy, or 

on the subject. But suddenly it appeared that a new fire had 
been kindled. Pictures were exhibited by Southern members of 
Congress, which had been sent from Boston to the Southern States 
by mail. One of them, which was in the hands of the Hon. Thom- 
as H. Benton, attracted great attention in the Senate Chamber. 
These pictures were designed to excite the slaves to armed' insur- 
rection. The reader of history will recollect that such an insur- 
rection had occurred in Virginia in 1831. 

It is probable that no society of people ever labored more as- 
siduously and perseveringly than did these anti-slavery agitators. 
They exhorted their followers to refuse all fellowship with the two 
great political parties of the day, stigmatizing both Whigs and 
Democrats as pro-slavery parties, corrupted and led by the slave 
holders of the South. Besides severing all connection with the 
two great national parties, they also very soon commenced apply- 
ing the knife to all connections with the different religious socie- 
ties. Generally they endeavored to proselyte the churches to their 
anti-slavery view§, and lead them to declare non-fellowship with 
Southern churches and societies, and if they could not succeed in 
such efforts, then they, as individuals, withdrew from the churches. 
By these means great agitation and trouble were produced in dif- 
ferent religious denominations. The Methodist Church was divi- 
ded into two rival opposing bodies. 

Up to the year 1840, the Anti-Slavery Societies continued their 
war against the Union merely as voluntary associations of indi- 
viduals, not attempting any political organizations. But in that year 
they held a political Convention, and nominated James G. Birney 
as their candidate for President of the United States. At the 
election, Mr. Birney received about six thousand votes, mostly in 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. The number would have been 
much larger if the members of the Anti- Slavery Society had all 
been voters. There were large numbers of them, however, that 
were unnaturalized foreigners, and, besides, females, or strong- 
minded women, composed a very considerable proportion of the 
members. Most of these foreigners were of English or Scotch 
birth, and refused to become naturalized citizens, giving as a rea- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 45 

son, that they could not take an oath to support or obey such a 
wicked instrument as the Constitution of the United States. 

The vote of the Anti-Slavery, or Abolition party, as they 
called themselves in 1840, had no perceptible influence on the 
Presidential election of that year, but their numbers increased so 
rapidly, that in 1844 they held the balance of power in New York, 
and if they had given their vote to Mr. Clay he wouldhave received 
the vote of New York, and would have been elected instead of 
Mr. Polk, in that year. 

During the year 1844, the leaders of the Anti-Slavery party 
laid down a complete plan of policy to be pursued in case their 
party should obtain control of the Government. This plan, as 
given by one of the most influential among them, embraced the 
following details : 

First. To prohibit slave-holders from holding any office under 
the United States. 

Second. To abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in 
all places where Congress had exclusive jurisdiction, by an act of 
that body. 

Third. They determined to change the Judiciary system, and 
appoint a large number of District and Circuit Judges of the 
United States Courts — the Judges to be men of the right stamp — 
for a certain purpose. That purpose was to set free all the slaves 
in the Union. In the slave-holding States, these Judges were to 
issue writs of habeas corpus, commanding the slaves to be brought 
before them. The masters were to be summoned to appear and 
show by what authority they detained these persons in bondage. 
As the Abolition creed had already decided that State laws for 
holding slaves were not binding, those Judges would decide that 
these persons, being unlawfully held in bondage, therefore they 
were free under the clause of the Constitution which says, "no 
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law." In this manner it was supposed that all the 
slaves in the Union could be set free in a short time. In order to 
guard against failure the authors observed: "It would, of course, 
be necessary to provide a sufficient military force to execute the 



4G Washington's pkophecy, or 

decrees of the Courts." So these hypocritical fanatics intended to 
emancipate all slaves by giving an entirely new construction to the 
Constitution. They knew perfectly well that the framers of the 
Constitution viewed the slaves as persons who had never possessed 
liberty, and could not, therefore, be deprived of it any more than 
the dead man could be deprived of life, or the destitute beggar be 
deprived of property, either with or without a process of law. 

But what did these men care for the real meaning of the Consti- 
tution. There was no trick or quibble too mean or dishonest; no 
falsehood too black ; no hypocrisy too devilish, for them to use if 
it would only aid them in destroying the Union. They laid plans 
for deceiving those of the people who were not easily led into their 
schemes. This grand programme for abolishing slavery in the 
States, was kept a secret in the hearts of those who had so far 
progressed that they could be trusted. They understood it per- 
fectly among themselves, but to the more tender-footed of their 
followers they said, " We do not expect to abolish slavery in the 
States, nor to make negroes and whites equal, we only intend to 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and prohibit it in the 
Territories." 

Their whole course proves that their settled determination was 
to abolish slavery at all hazards, and if they could not effect it, 
then they intended to rise in arms against the Government, and 
secede from the Union. But they, at the same time, kept two 
faces, one was the secession face with which they pretended to believe 
that they could destroy slavery by destroying the Union, and with 
this face they gained the old disunion element who wished to dis- 
solve the Union. It must not be forgotten, that in 1845, when 
Texas was admitted into the Union, the Legislature of Massachu- 
setts passed a Joint Resolution declaring the Union virtually dis- 
solved; and although they did not go so far as to declare they 
would separate, " amicably if they could, and violently if they 
must," yet they have never repealed that resolution, and it stands 
to this day, recorded in the State House, that Massachusetts, 
ever since 1845, has considered the Union dissolved. But as we 
before remarked, the party had another face which they donned 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 47 

when "speaking to a person or an assembly who might be sup- 
posed to be Union people. Tc them they said, "We arc the true 
friends of the Union. We do not intend so dissolve or break up 
the Union ; we do not intend to force you to receive the negroes 
as your equals." "We do not even intend to abolish slavery in 
the States where it exists." 

How do those men act in I860 ? 

What honest, truthful, sincere, and candidmen they are! How 
beautifully consistent their language and their conduct has been ! 



48 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE AMERICAN UNION. 

We now come to the consideration of those particular measures 
which have so completely fulfilled the prediction made by Wash- 
ington in his Farewell Address. 

The prediction reads as follows : 

" It is easy to foresee, that from different causes and from dif- 
ferent quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices em- 
ployed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth. As 
this is the point in your political fortress against which the bat- 
teries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly 
and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it 
is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the im- 
mense value of your national Union to your collective and indi- 
vidual happiness." 

Again he says : " Designing men may endeavor to excite a 
belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views." 
"One of the expedients of^party to acquire influence within par- 
ticular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of an- 
other district." "You cannot shield yourselves too much against 
the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these misrep- 
resentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who 
ought to be bound together by fraternal affection." 

The first organized association which made a systematic move- 
ment in fulfilling these predictions was probably the American 
Anti-Slavery Society, formed at Boston about the year 1831. 
About the same time Wm. Loyd Garrison established his famous 
newspaper, called the Liberator. As the Society grew in strength, 
it became each succeeding year more and more intolerent and abu- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 49 

sivc towards all who differed from them, or who presumed to doubt 
the wisdom of their measures. As all the Whigs and Democrats 
of that day condemned it as a dangerous association, the new So- 
ciety very soon excommunicated from its fellowship both of those 
parties, and consigned them to perdition. Mr. Garrison placed 
at the head of his paper the motto, "The Union is a league with 
hell, and the Constitution a covenant with death." The Liberator 
kept this motto at its head from 1881, to 18G4, and the Anti- 
Slavery party justified Mr. Garrison in all that he said against the 
Union and Constitution. 

We shall now quote a few of the assertions made by these con- 
spirators : 

"The Constitution of our fathers was a mistake. Tear it in 
pieces and make a better. Don't say the machine is out of order, 
it is in order; it does what its framers intended — it protects 
slavery. Our claim is disunion — breaking up of the States. I 
have shown that you our work cannot be done under our institu- 
tions." — Wendell Phillips. 

" This Union is a lie. The American Union is an imposture, a 
covenant with death, and an agreement with hell. I am for its 
overthrow. Up with the flag of disunion that we may have a free 
and glorious Republic of our own ; and when that hour shall 
come, the hour will have arrived that shall witness the overthrow 
of slavery." — Wm. Loydd Garrison. 

Perhaps Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips would like to have us 
now believe that they were only using highly figurative language 
on those occasions, and that they were real Union men, and "loy- 
al" all the time. If they were not traitors and secessionists, 
then we would be glad to know what kind of language traitors 
would be likely to use? 

At the regular anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety in 1844, the following resolutions were passed: (See the 
New York Observer, May 25th, 1844.) 

Resolved, That a political Union in any form between a slave-holding and 
a free community must necessarily involve the- latter in the gulf of slavery. 
Therefore, 

Resolved, That secession from the United States Government is the duty 
of every Abolitionist, since no one can take oath, or deposit a vote under its 
Constitution without violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering 
himself an abettor to the slave-holder in his sin. 



50 Washington's prophecy, or 

Resolved, That fourteen years of warfare against the slave-power have 
ci ir. inced us that every act done in support of the American Union rivets 
the chains of the slaves— that the only exoduspf the (slave to freedom, unless 
it be one of blood, must lie over the remains of the present American Church, 
and the grave of the present Union. 

. That the AboHtionists of this country should make it one of the 
- y objects of this agitation to dissolve the American Union. 

" As these resolutions, with many others of the same nature, 
were published in the New York Observer, the Liberator, and 
several other Anti-Slavery papers in 1844, no individual, who, at 
that time took notice of their movements, can now deny these 
stubborn facts. 

On the first of February, 1850, Senator Hale of New Hamp- 
shire, who, afterwards, in 1852, became the Free Soil candidate 
for President of the United States, presented two petitions from 
numerous Abolitionists, praying Congress that " some plan might 
be devised for the dissolution of the American Union." The 
Hon. Daniel Webster suggested that there should have been a 
preamble to them in these words : Gentlemen, Members of Con- 
gress — Whereas, At the commencement of this session, you and 
each of you took your solemn oaths in the presence of God, and 
on the Holy Evangelists, that you would support the Constitu- 
tion of the United States ; now, therefore, we pray you to take 
immediate steps to break up the Union and overthrow the Consti- 
tution as soon as you can. 

For the reception of these petitions, three of the Senators 
voted, they being all the Anti-Slavery men that held seats in the 
Senate at that time. Their names were Wm. H. Seward of New 
York, John P. Hale of New Hampshire, and Salmon P. Chase of 
O'hio. Is it possible that such men as these actually did, in 1850, 
vote to encourage a dissolution of the Union ? Let them deny 
the record if they can. 

On the 25th of February, 1850, the same petitions were offered 
in the House of Representatives by Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, 
and received seven votes, being all the Anti-Slavery members then 
ip the House. Their names were Charles Allen of Massachu- 
setts, Charles Durkee of Wisconsin, Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio, 
Rufus K. Goodenow of Maine, George W. Julian of Indiana, 
Preston King of New York, and J. M. Root of Ohio. 

If seven Representatives and three Senators' now, in 18G6, 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 51 

should vote for the reception of such petitions, they would be ex- 
pelled from Congress. And if any Southern member of Con- 
gress, or any Democrat, had presented such a petition in ] 850, 
his name would now be a by-word of shame. 

Mr. Seward in his works says: "Assuming that all men are 
equal by the law of nature and nations, the right of property in 
slaves falls to the ground. But you answer that the Constitution 
recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to re- 
ply that this Constitutional recognition must be void, because it 
is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations." (See Sew- 
ard's Works, Vol. 1, page 71.) 

Again Mr. Seward says: "Extend a cordial welcome to the 
fugitive who lays his weary limbs at your door, and defend him 
as you would your paternal gods. Correct your own error, that 
slavery has any Constitutional guarantee that may not be released, 
and ought not to be relinquished." (See Seward's Works, Vol. 
3, pp. 301-2.) 

It has been generally supposed that State Eights is an explo- 
ded doctrine, because the Constitution is the supreme law of the 
land; but we see that Mr. Seward, in 1850, takes the ground that 
there is a " higher law " than the Constitution ; that each individ- 
ual has a right to make a law for himself, and if the Constitution 
conflicts with the conscience of any person, or with his feelings, 
then he may treat the Constitution as void, and may violate the 
Constitution if he sees fit. That was the doctrine of Mr. Seward 
and of all his party expressed in plain English, and they seem 
inclined ever since to act in accordance with it. Accordingly, 
they taught by word and deed, that, although the Constitution 
commanded the return of fugitive slaves, yet if any individual 
felt inclined, he had a right to resist the fugitive slave law, and it 
was his duty to defend the fugitive "as he would his paternal 
gods." 

In his speech in the Senate, March 11th, 1850, Mr. feewaird 
threatened the South with violence and war unless they immediately 
consented to abolish slavery. He remarks: "When this answer 
sli 11 be given, it will appear that the question of dissolving the 
Laion is a complex question that embraces the fearful issue wheth- 



52 Washington's prophecy, or 

cr the Union shall stand, and slavery, under the steady, peaceful 
action of moral, social, and political causes, be removed by grad- 
ual voluntary effort, and with compensation, or whether the Union 
shall be dissolved, and civil war ensue, bringing on violent but com- 
plete and immediate emancipation." 

Mr. Seward always speaks and writes in such language that his 
words require a touch of the plain English. Now we see from 
this speech of Mr. Seward's in March, 1850, delivered in the 
United States Senate, that his party had already got their plans 
laid, and all their actions from that time to this have been gov- 
erned accordingly. His language at that time evidently meant 
just this : You Southerners may take your choice. We Anti- 
Slavery men have settled upon our plans, and we will not give 
them up. You may let the Union stand, as you seem to be so 
anxious for its preservation. But if you wish to preserve the 
Union you must consent and agree to our unalterable terms. You 
must agree to remove slavery by gradual, voluntary effort, and 
with compensation, or else the Union shall be dissolved; we Anti 
Slavery men will dissolve it, and then we shall, by war, emanci- 
pate your slaves completely and immediately. What else could 
he have meant? What other construction could have been rea- 
sonably placed upon such language ? Did he expect that the 
Southern States would secede so long as their Constitutional 
rights were respected by the Government? Certainly not. Mr. 
Seward never expected them to secede until secession actually 
commenced in 1861, or else he wilfully and maliciously concealed 
his own opinions. 

In September, 1860, Mr. Seward addressed the Republican 
mass meeting at Detroit, and in the course of his speech spake as 
follows: "Some of our Northern friends express fears that the 
election of a Republican President may be followed by a difficul- 
ty with the South. There is no danger, my friends. Let us elect 
a Republican President, and we shall have greater harmony than 
we ever yet had upon the slavery question." 

During the same year, Mr. Seward, at Boston, used the follow- 
ing language a short time before the election : " What a commen- 
tary upon the history of man is the fact, that eighteen years after 



FACTS CONCERNING TIIE REBELLION. 53 

the death of John Quincy Adams, the people have for their stan- 
dard bearer, Abraham Lincoln, confessing the obligation of that 
"higher law," which the sage of Quincy proclaimed, and contend- 
ing for weal or woe, life or death, in the Irrepressible Conflict be- 
tween freedom and slavery. I desire only to say that we are in 
the last stage of the conflict before the triumphant inauguration 
of this policy into the Government of the United States." 

Here we have the admission of Mr. Seward in 1860, that a 
policy entirely new was to be triumphantly inaugurated into the 
Government of the United States, provided they could elect a 
Republican President. Of course he meant that the policy of the 
Government under Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and 
all the rest down to that time, allowing the States to regulate 
their own domestic institutions, would be done away, and the na- 
ture of the Government would be changed. If the Anti- Slavery 
party could not get control of the Government, then they intended 
to break it up, but if they could obtain, that control, then they in- 
tended to change the Government itself. 

When the Republican Convention of 1850 nominated Mr. Fre- 
mont, the following resolution was adopted as part of the plat- 
form: 

Ived, That it is the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the Ter 
ritories those twin relics of barbarism, Slavery and Polygamy. 

The party did not pretend or profess any regard for the Union, 
nor for the feelings or opinions of the Southern people. They 
did not resemble in the least degree the patriots of '76, nor the 
fathers of the Constitution. They were determined, right or 
wrong, to destroy all friendship between the North and the South. 

Judge Spaulding of Ohio, a delegate in that Convention, said : 
x * In the case of the alternative being presented of the continuance 
of slavery or a dissolution of the Union, I am for dissolution, and 
I care not how quick it comes." 

If that Convention had not been composed of disunionists such 
a remark would have been disavowed by them, but it was not even 
rebuked. 

In the same Presidential campaign of 1856, the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher, in a speech at New Haven, Connecticut, said: 
—4 



54 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

" The people will not levy war, nor inaugurate a revolution until 
they have first tried what they can do by voting. If this peace- 
ful remedy should fail to be applied this year, then the people will 
count the cost wisely, and decide for themselves boldly and firm- 
ly, which is the better way to rise in arms and throw off a Gov- 
ernment worse than that of old King George, or endure it anoth- 
er four years, and then vote again." 

"What did Mr. Beecher mean, in 1856, by the word "revolu- 
tion?" What did he mean by saying, "rise in arms, and throw 
off the Government?" Who was it that he supposed might 
"boldly and firmly " do this ? Did he have reference to the peo- 
ple of the East, the West, the North or the South? His language 
scarcely needs any explanation. He was a Secessionist — a rebel 
in heart, and a most violent one in 1856. He plainly indicated 
at that time that his opinion was, that the people then ought to 
rise in arms against the Government, and not endure the awful 
tyranny another four years, and vote again. 

In the same speech Mr. Beecher said: "The Constitution is 
the cause of every division which this vexed question of slavery 
hag ever occasioned in this country. It has been the fountain 
and father of all trouble, by attempting to hold together as recon- 
ciled, two opposing principles which will not harmonize together. 
The only hope of the slave is over the ruins of the Government 
and of the American Church. The dissolution of the Union is 
the abolition of slavery." 

Here Mr. Beecher shows that he did not approve of the Con- 
stitution or the Union, and that he was for dissolution as a means 
of freeing the slave. Does the language of Mr. Beecher show 
him to have been, in 1856, a loyal man — a friend of the Union — 
or a traitor and disunionist — a rebel at heart? Did any seces- 
sionist in any part of the country use more traitorous and rebel- 
lious language in 1856 than did Mr. Beecher, Mr. Garrison, Mr. 
Wendell Philips, and the lights of the Anti-Slavery party? 

Among the documents published and circulated in 1856 by the 
Republican Central Committee, was a sermon by the Bev. Ed- 
mund Sears, at Wayland, Massachusetts, in which he says : "Out 
of the present crisis there are two paths that open before us, and 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 55 

only two. One i3 through violence and revolution. When the 
public organism has become possessed with the spirit of evil, and 
is used for its work, the last remedy is to break it in pieces and 
let right and justice go free. Revolution is God's remedy." 

Thus, in 1856, and in the loyal State of Massachusetts, we find 
men firing the New England heart, when the Southern people 
were quietly and peaceably engaged as loyal citizens without a 
word of discontent; and New England divines were persuading 
the Northern people that God called upon them to rise in arms 
against the Government. In this sermon of Mr. Sears', the rev- 
erend gentleman labored to persuade his hearers that a great cri- 
sis had arrived. That the United States Government had de- 
prived the Northern people of their rights ; that it had trampled 
upon them till they could stand it no longer, and, like Mr. Beech- 
er, he thought they ought not to endure it. 

It should be remembered that the principal cause of complaint 
which these men seemed to dwell upon was the Fugitive Slave 
Law of 1850. These men pretended that it was a most dreadful 
thing to see United States officers arrest a fugitive slave and carry 
him back to his master. And as they could none of them deny 
that it was Constitutional, as Mr. Phillips and Mr. Beecher had 
labored to prove that it was Constitutional, therefore they deter- 
mined to overthrow the Union. 

The Rev. Henry W. Bellows, of New York, in time of the 
Presidential contest of 1856, delivered a sermon, which was also 
published and circulated by the Republican Central Committee, 
from which we also quote. He says: "Considered as a question 
of policy, it is by no means certain that the dissolution of the 
Union would be a political evil to us. The Union is great, pre- 
cious, sacred; but — yes, we must say it — humanity, duty, honor, 
religion, are greater than the Union. This, then, is the unyield- 
ing ground of the Republican party — there is no evil possible to 
the country at this crisis as great as the extension of slavery. 
Dreadful as disunion is, the extension of slavery is still more 
dreadful. The dissolution of the Union, however deplorable, is 
not primarily a matter of conscience, but of policy. We made 
the Union, and we have a right to unmake it if we choose."' 

What was the object of the Republican Central Committee of 



56 Washington's prophecy, or 

1856 .in publishing such sentiments as these? They scattered 
these sermons all over the Northern States as campaign docu- 
ments to aid the election of Mr. Fremont. Undoubtedly the 
grand idea was to prepare the Northern people for a violent sep- 
aration from the Union. They determined to present the subject 
iu so many forms before the minds of the Northern people, that 
when the proper time came every Northern citizen would naturally 
expect it. And they calculated that all the New England States, 
New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, would join in secession even 
if other States should hold back. 

It is not at all probable that the Republican leaders in 1854, 
'55, } 5Q, expected to gain control of the Government. If they 
had, they would have .used other means than these in securing 
votes, but at that time they calculated to raise the flag of seces- 
sion and take New England, with such other States as they could 
induce to join them, form a Confederacy, and, as Mr. Garrison 
said, have " a free and glorious Republic of their own." 

Tne following insult to the American flag was published in the 
New York Tribune, June 13th, 1854 : 

ODE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG. 

All hail the flaunting lie, 

The stars grow pale and dim ; 
The stripes are bloody scars — 

A lie the vaunting hymn. 

It shields a pirate's deck, 

It binds a man in chains ; 
It yokes the captive's neck, 

And wipes the bloody stains ! 

Tear down the flaunting lie, 

Half-mast the starry flag ; 
Insiilt.no sunny sky 

With hate's polluted rag. 
Furl the boasted lie, 

Till freedom lives again, 
To rule once more in truth 

Among untrammeled men. 
Roll up the starry sheen, 

Conceal its bloody stains, 
For in its folds are seen, 

The stamp of rustling chains. 

The principal object aimed at in this insulting hymn was to 
impress upon the minds of Northern people the idea so long 
dwelt upon by the anti- slavery men, viz: that the American Union 
and Government was responsible for the thousand cruelties which 
they imagined to bo daily committed by slave-holders. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 57 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SUPREMACY OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

Washington, in his Farewell Address, remarks: "The unity 
of Government, which constitutes you one poeple, is justly dear 
to you, it is the main pillar in the edifice of your real indepen- 
dence; the support of your tranquility at home, your peace 
abroad; of your safety, your prosperity; of that very liberty 
which you so highly prize. Much pains will be taken, many ar- 
tifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this 
truth." That this was a positive prediction, and that it has been 
most fearfully fulfilled, is probably admitted by every American 
citizen. 

The efforts of the anti-slavery writers and orators to render 
the Union and the Constitution odious, hateful, and abominable 
in the eyes of Northern people, were so public and so common 
during the period from 1832 to 1859, that those men themselves 
for many years were not safe in uttering their sentiments outside 
of Massachusetts. But after many years of arduous exertions 
they gained great influence in other States. Their influence was 
seen and felt in New England earlier than in other States, and its 
great increase was exhibited in the passage of Personal Liberty 
bills, as they were generally called. 

The object of these bills was to prevent or obstruct as much 
as possible the arrest and return of fugitive slaves who had es- 
caped from their masters. 

When the Constitution was framed in 1787, amongst other 
clauses one was inserted which 'reads as follows : " No person 
held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, es- 
caping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regula- 



58 Washington's prophecy, or 

tion therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be 
delivered up on claim of the party to -whom such service or labor 
may be due." 

In order to secure the execution and fulfillment of this clause of 
the Constitution, the Congress of 1793, in the fifth year of 
Washington's Administration, passed a law for the arrest and re- 
turn of fugitives, which he himself approved and signed. 

As the anti-slavery sentiment increased in the North, there were 
at all times persons who would assist the fugitives in escap- 
ing from the pursuit of their masters. They generally concealed 
them for a time and then sent them forward to Canada, or to some 
point where they would be safe from pursuit. If the slave hap- 
pened to be caught, very ingenious measures were often used to 
rescue him and conceal him. Anti-slavery men in course of time 
became so numerous that if a slave escaped from Maryland, Dela- 
ware, Virginia, or Kentucky, he knew where to find a friend who 
would send him forward two or three days journey to another 
friend, where he could rest and receive instructions for further 
journeys. This kind of arrangements received the name of the 
underground railroad. From 1840 to 1850 the recapture of 
fugitives became so difficult, that in the year 1850 a new law was 
passed by Congress' for the rendition of fugitive slaves. Henry 
Clay was one of the leading members in Congress at this time, 
Millard Filmore being President, and Daniel Webster Secretary 
of State. For their concurrence in this new law, Mr. Filmore 
and Mr. Webster, together with the Whig members, of Congress 
incurred the sore displeasure and loud maledictions of the Anti- 
Slavery or Free Soil party. That the law was Constitutional 
was generally admitted even by the anti-slavery men, but they 
hated the Constitution, and of course there could be nothing 
done by either Whigs or Democrats which was not found fault 
with. Judge Story, of Massachusetts, himself a warm Whig, in 
his book of comments on the Constitution, insists strongly upon 
the faithful performance of this as well as every other Consti- 
tutional obligation. . 

Mr. Lincoln, too, in his Inaugural Address, on the 4th of 
March, 1801, assures the people of the United States that he had 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 59 

no doubt the framers of the Constitution made that clause for the 
express purpose of securing the return of fugitive slaves to their 
masters. And he adds, the intention of the law-giver is the law. 
But in order to show their contempt and dislike for the pro- 
visions of the Constitution, several States passed laws with the 
view to obstruct its enforcement. 

In two of the States, (Vermont and Rhode Island,) these laws 
were so boldly violative of the Constitution that they rendered it 
almost impossible for their own citizens to fulfil their obligations 
to the United States Government. In Vermont the personal lib- 
erty law completely nullified the law of Congress. 

The law of Congress authorized the officers in cases of necessi- 
ty to call upon the citizens to aid them in arresting and keeping 
the fugitives until they could be delivered over to their masters. 
It also authorized the officers to arrest any person who might aid 
or assist in any attempt to rescue the fugitive. The anti-slavery 
men cried out tyranny, despotism, and used every possible means 
to render the law odious in the eyes of the public. They said to 
their unsophisticated hearers, "Why, my friend, this law makes 
us all a pack of dogs, to leave our business and our homes when- 
ever the slave owner comes among us. We must turn out and 
spend our time in hunting runaway slaves whenever the lordly mas- 
ter commands us." Such language very naturally rendered the 
law odious in many places. Not one in a hundred of the private 
citizens ever examined the law for themselves, or knew any thing of 
its contents except from the false and exciting statements of the 
ranting orators and writers of the Abolition party. Probably no 
citizen of any State was ever compelled to aid the officers against 
his will, or even called upon to do so. Yet, as we have seen, 
these men felt so awfully oppressed by this wicked law, that they 
could hardly rest night or day for fear, that away up there in 
Vermont, or Massachusetts, where on an average not one citizen 
in ten thousand would see a fugitive slave in a year, the call of 
the officer or the master might be heard commanding them in the 
name of the United States to start out and hunt for a panting 
fugitive. So infatuated did these educated, intelligent, American 
citizens become, that they regarded the fugitive slave running 



60 Washington's prophecy, or 

away from liis master as one of Heaven's own children, to whom 
they must give aid and assistance, or forfeit their claim to heaven 
itself. In some instances songs and hymns were composed rep- 
resenting the Saviour of the world a3 being in reality visible in 
the character of an arrested fugitive, with his feet and hands 
ironed, and lying in a jail. 

No language was too vile — in fact they could hardly find words 
sufficiently bitter to express their hatred towards the new fugitive 
slave law. Their newspapers openly advised and encouraged 
the people to resist it. In many cases the law was resisted, and 
those who resisted the law were applauded as heroes and patriots. 
If the officers overtook and attempted to arrest the fugitive, a 
mob of fanatics generally assembled to rescue # them. Several 
mobs of this kind occurred in Boston, and on one occasion an of- 
ficer was shot and wounded while in the performance of his duty. 
Mobs of the same kind occurred at Rochester and Buffalo, in New 
York ; Hartford, Connecticut ; at Cleveland, Oberlin, and other 
places in Ohio ; Chicago and Ottawa, in Illinois, and many other 
places in the Northern and Eastern States. Mr. Wendell Phil- 
lips, on one occasion, performed the highly courageous, honorable, 
and patriotic act of rescuing a fugitive slave from the officers in 
Boston, on w T hich occasion, being fined a considerable sum for vio- 
lating the law, his anti- slavery friends raised the money by sub- 
scription and paid it. 

In Vermont, the Personal Liberty Law declared that every per- 
son who might have been previously a slave, and who should in 
any w r ay come into that State, should be free. By the several 
acts of 1843, 1850, and 1858, the State ordained that no court, 
justice of the peace, or magistrate, should take cognizance of any 
certificate, warrant, or process under the fugitive slave law, thus 
commanding her citizens and magistrates not to obey any process 
issued by the United States Courts on that subject. It also or- 
dained that "no officer or citizen of the State should arrest or aid, 
or assist in arresting any person for the reason that he was 
claimed as a fugitive slave, and that no officer or citizen should 
aid or assist in removing from the State any person claimed as a 
fugitive slave ; any officer or citizen violating this law to be fined 



FACTS CONCERNING TIIE REBELLION. Gl 

one thousand dollars or imprisoned five years in State prison." 
Thus a citizen who obeyed the law of the United States, was lia- 
ble to be fined and imprisoned for so doing. How very loyal the 
State of Vermont was in 1858! 

The States Attorneys were also commanded to act as counsel 
for all fugitives who might be arrested or claimed. 

The act also provided for issuing writs of habeas corpus, and 
the trial by jury of all questions of fact in issue between the par- 
ties, and ordained that every persen who might have been a slave, 
who should come, or be brought, or be in the State, either with 
or without the consent of his or her master or mistress, or who 
should come or be brought, or be involuntarily, or in any way in 
the State, should be free. 

By this clause they also gave freedom to any fugitive slave who 
might be arrested in any other State and carried through the 
State of Vermont on the way to their master or owner. It was 
also ordained that every person who should hold, or attempt to 
hold, in the State, in slavery, or as a slave, any person men- 
tioned as a slave in the section of the act relative to fugitive 
slaves, or any free person, in any form, or for any time however 
short, under the pretense that such person was or had been a 
slave, should, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned in the State 
prison for a term not less than one nor more than fifteen years, 
and be fined not exceeding two thousand dollars. It is easy to 
see that the slave-holder who wished to avoid the Vermont State 
prisons, found it best not to enter that State in pursuit of his ne- 
groes. Vermont seemed to take special pleasure in showing the 
people of the United States how little she regarded the laws of 
the Union. In order to avoid all danger of collision, negroes, if 
they escaped into Vermont, were never pursued, and the officers 
of the United States took care not to enter the State with an ar- 
rested fugitive nor to go there in. pursuit of one. 
. The Personal Liberty Law of Rhode Island forbade the carrying 
away of any person by force from the State, or any judge, justice, 
magistrate, or court from officially aiding in the arrest of. a fugi- 
tive slave under the Fugitive slave Law of 1793 or 1850. It also 
forbade any sheriff or other officer from arresting or detaining 



02 Washington's prophecy, or 

any person claimed as a fugitive slave, and made the penalty five 
hundred dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding six months, for 
violating this act. It also ordained that no officer or agent of 
the United States Government should be allowed to use any jail 
within the State to confine or detain a fugitive slave. Little 
Rhody must have felt very large about that time. 

The Personal Liberty Law of Maine enacted that "no sheriff, 
deputy sheriff, coroner, constable, jailer, or justice of the peace, 
or other officer of the State, shall arrest or detain, or aid in so 
doing, in any prison or building belonging to the State, or to any 
county or town, any person claimed as a fugitive slave, under a 
penalty not exceeding one thousand dollars; and this law also 
makes it the duty of all county attorneys to repair to the place 
where such person may be held in custody, and render all neces- 
sary and legal assistance in making his defense against such claim." 

Although this law does not actually violate the Constitution of 
the United States, yet it proved that the people of that State had 
determined to obstruct and prevent the Southern people from 
claiming those rights which they were entitled to under the Con- 
stitution and by the terms of the Union. It is true that, under 
the Constitution, no officer of the United States can claim the 
right to use any building belonging to the State or the people of 
a State without the consent of the Legislature of that State. The 
Anti-Slavery Radicals of 1850 and 1860 had, as it seems, a very 
correct knowledge of State Rights, so far as claiming the sover- 
eignty over their own property; but when other States, whose 
people claimed the right to hold slaves, insisted on the same prin- 
ciple, then they discovered all at once that the doctrine of State 
Rights was all wrong. 

The Personal Liberty Law of Massachusetts prohibited all 
State magistrates and judges from performing any service under 
the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. Yes, long before the Fugitive 
Slave Law of 1850 was passed, the Legislature of Massachusetts 
sought to nullify a law of Congress passed in 1793, under Wash- 
ington's Administration; a law that received the approval and 
signature of the Father of his country. Could any act more 
clearly demonstrate the fact that the majority in Massachusetts 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 63 

who threatened secession in 1844, and at various other times, 
have always been opposed to the Constitution of the United 
States, and to the main principles of the Union? Could any act 
more clearly demonstrate their hypocrisy in pretending sinco 
1860, that they, the radicals, are the true Union men, and that all 
who do not coincide with their notions are rebels against the Gov- 
ernment ? 

After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the Mas- 
sachusetts Legislature in 1855 passed another act, under which 
commissioners were appointed by the Governor, whose duty it was 
made on being informed of the arrest of any person as a fugitive 
slave, " to use all means to protect and defend such alleged fugi- 
tive, and secure him a fair and impartial trial by jury." Persons 
holding any office under the State were forbidden to issue any 
warrant or other process under the Fugitive Slave Law. Jails of 
the State not to be used for the detention of fugitive slaves ; com- 
missioners to be appointed in every county to defend the alleged 
fugitives. 

To the lasting honor of Governor Banks, who has since been 
General, he, in 1861, when about to retire from the Governorship 
of Massachusetts, evinced a desire to aid in some manner the res- 
toration of the old Union. He addressed a Message to the Leg- 
islature in which, speaking of the Personal Liberty Law, he says : 
" I can not but regard the maintenance of a statute, whether con- 
stitutional or not, which is so unnecessary to the public service, 
and so detrimental to the public peace, as an inexcusable public 
wrong. I hope, by common consent, it may be removed from the 
Statute book, and such guarantees as constitutional freedom de- 
mands be sought in new legislation." 

Every reader can see that Governor Banks here condemns all the 
proceedings of the anti-slavery men from 1830 to 1860. But the 
Massachusetts Legislature refused to repeal the Personal Liberty 
Law, and said by that act, " You don't catch us acknowledging 
that we have ever done wrong. No, indeed." 

The Personal Liberty Law of Pennsylvania reads : " No Judge 
of any of the Courts of this Commonwealth, nor any Alderman, 
or Justice of the Peace of said Commonwealth, shall have juris- 



64 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

diction, or take cognizance of the case of any fugitive from labor 
from any of the States or Territories, under any act of Congress." 

The Constitution of the United States says: u This Constitu- 
tion, together with all treaties, and all laws of Congress made 
in accordance therewith, shall be the supreme law of the land, 
any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the con- 
trary notwithstanding." 

See the Personal Liberty Law of Pennsylvania, and then answer 
who were the most strenuous in favor of State Right?, the late 
slave States or the radicals, previous to the war? Who ever 
heard of an Abolitionist declaiming against State Eights or State 
Sovereignty previous to the year 1861? 

. The law of Michigan requires all States Attorneys to act as 
counsel for fugitive slaves; secures to persons arrested 3s fugitive 
slaves the benefit of habeas corpus and trial by jury, and forbids 
any oflicer or other psrson to use the State jails for detaining fu- 
gitive slaves. 

The Personal Liberty Law of Ohio possesses the same general 
features with that of Michigan. 

In Wisconsin the law required the District Attorneys of that 
State to act as counsel for fugitive slaves; secured to such persons 
the benefit of habeas corpus and trial by jury, and provided for 
appeal. to be taken to the next term of the Circuit Court. 

That the Anti-Slavery, Free Soil, or Republican party is re- 
sponsible for the enactment of all these Personal Liberty Laws 
which Governor Banks, himself a Republican, admitted to be in- 
excusable public wrongs, and also for all the violent attempts 
(generally successful) which were made for the purpose of resist- 
ing the Fugitive Slave Law and rescuing the fugitives, needs n'O 
further proof. In 1856, none of the party pretended to deny the 
fact. Ask Mr. Wendell Phillips, Mr. H. W. Beecher, Mr. John 
P. Hale, Senator Wade of Ohio, or Chandler of Michigan, Sum- 
ner or Wilson of Massachusetts. ' Will they pretend that their 
memories are so treacherous that they can not distinctly recollect 
whether these statements are true or not? 

The position assumed by these men and thousands more implied 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 65 

just this : " In our opinion, our father?, with Washington at their 
head, acted very unjustly when they placed in the Constitution a 
clause requiring the arrest and return of fugitive slaves, and that 
part of tho Constitution we are determined we will resist and 
disobey. It may possibly lead to a dissolution of the Union, and 
that is what we desire and hope for. Let the Union be destroyed 
rather than preserve its peace and prosperity by obeying this 
clause of the Constitution." 

The action of these fanatics on the subject of fugitive slaves 
indicated more plainly than any other, their determination to 
break up the Union, as acts generally speak more loudly than 
words. 

If it were not for these Personal Liberty Laws, and the activity 
and violence of Abolitionists in resisting the Fugitive Slave Law 
and rescuing fugitives, the act of John Brown would not have ap- 
peared so excitingly dangerous to the public peace ; because the 
violent act of Brown and his associates might not have been re- 
garded as approved and abetted by his anti-slavery friends. But 
when we see that thousands and tens of thousands of people in 
New England and other States had, for years previously, been ac- 
tuated by the same disposition towards the people of the South, 
then the act of John Brown appears in its true light as only 
one step in advance of the rest of his party. His fanaticism was 
the same in nature, only a little more violent in degree. His 
insanity, if insanity it was, only a very little exceeded that of 
thousands of others in Boston, and other parts of Massachusetts, 
Vermont, Connecticut, and several other States. 

Jt was not the value of the slaves rescued or carried away by 
the radicals that disturbed the minds of Southern people. But 
the evidence which it furnished of a fanatical public sentiment 
rapidly increasing in the North was good cause for alarm. They 
remonstrated, but the remonstrances were vain. They said: "We 
of the South have honestly obeyed all the recpuirements of the 
Constitution. We have treated the Northern people during all 
the past years as brethren. We have never harbored a desire to 
interfere with their rights, nor to forfeit their good will by acts 
insulting or unjust to them. Then why do your people exhibit 



66 Washington's prophecy, or 

by all these acts such a hostility towards us?" The conduct of 
the Anti-Slavery party said even more loudly than their words : 
"We hate you and your institutions; we despise you most hearti- 
ly and sincerely. We do not wish and do not intend to remain 
in the same Union or under the same Government with you. 
Therefore, if you do not leave the Union, we intend to break it up 
at all hazards." 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 67 



CHAPTER IX. 

JOHN BROWN'S BODY. 

From the time of the formation of the Union in 1787 up to 
1859, no one single individual ever communicated such a sudden 
and severe shock to the fabric of the Union as did John Brown 
at Harper's Ferry. Such had been the effects of the acts, words, 
and proceedings of the Anti-slavery radicals in the North, that 
the people of the North and the South had become more hostile 
in their feelings towards each other than they had ever before ap- 
peared. 

The speeches of political demagogues, the contemptuous, scorn- 
ful, venomously bitter articles written by radical newspaper edit- 
ors and correspondents against the South ; the sermons of politi- 
cal preachers in the pulpit, taken together with all the novels, 
pamphlets, and books, which had been written for the purpose of 
exciting prejudices against the South, had already produced an 
alarmingly dangerous condition of the popular feeling amongst 
Southern as well as Northern people. It had already become evi- 
dent to the minds of thoughtful Union men in the North and 
South, that peace and the semblance of a Union could not be 
much longer preserved if the influence of ultra, radical, and vio- 
lent men should continue to increase. 

The true and sincere friends of tie Union — those who had nev- 
er bowed the knee to the negro, nor espoused the cause of the 
Boston Disunionists — the "Union-savers," and " Union-shriek - 
ers," as they were derisively called in the Republican newspapers 
of 1856, '58, and '59 — such men as Edward Everett, Millard Fil- 



68 Washington's prophecy, or 

more, Lewis Cass, and Stephen A. Douglass, were already filled 
with anxiety and fear in view of the awful precipice towards 
which we were being so rapidly and irresistably drawn, when a 
new and still more dangerous movement suddenly arrested and 
absorbed the attention of the country. Like the cry of "break- 
ers ahead," when the ship is in the midst of a terrific storm, and 
struggling with the waves; like the cry of "fire" in the dark 
hours of night, when shipwreck is already so imminent, may be 
compared the news of the raid of John Brown in its effects upon 
the mind3 of true Union men in September, 1859. They were 
the only persons who could properly estimate its dangerous effects 
upon the minds of the people of the South, who were already 
under the influence of great excitement in consequence of the 
acts and speeches of Abolitionists. 

They saw at a glance, that the raid of John Brown invading the 
State of Virginia with the openly avowed purpose to arm the 
slaves, and set them upon the work of bloody insurrection, would 
greatly increase the excitement of the Southern people, and ren- 
der the preservation of peace and Union still more difficult. 

The true Union men saw also that most of the Republican 
writers and speakers were evidently disposed to excuse or justify 
the movement of Brown, and this action would give to the South- 
ern .people still more evidence and fuller proof that their rights 
would not be safe in the Union if the radicals, under the name of 
Republicans, should obtain control of the Government. Besides, 
it was generally regarded as an evidence that the radicals wished 
to provoke and compel the Southern people to rebel, and thus get 
rid of the slave-holding States. Therefore the raid of John Brown 
rendered it doubly sure in the eyes of reflecting Union men, that 
an Abolition or Republican triumph in the Presidential election 
of 18G0, following so soon after the raid, would so exasperate the 
masses of the Southern people, that rebellion, under the name of 
secession, would surely follow. But the large majority of the 
Republicans said : "Ko danger. The South cannot be kicked 
out of the Union. If they g t angry at John Brown's raid, then 
let them get pleased again.'' It was evident to the true friends 
of the Union, that, under these circumstances, the election of a 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 69 

Republican President by the vote of the Northern States, would 
result in rebellion, and probably in war. T*he circumstances of 
Brown's raid, therefore, seemed to the true Union men, as bring- 
ing the danger of dissolution many years nearer than it before 
appeared. It seemed to indicate, the Rubicon is now passed, it 
only needs one more step to bring dissolution. To some of them 
the dreadful horrors of civil war became to the eye of the mind a 
visible, certain reality. They saw and clearly understood the ef- 
fects which would be produced in the minds of Southern people 
generally. They also saw that such was the state of feeling ex- 
isting among the Republicans against slavery and the South, that 
the members of that party would not be disposed, under any circum- 
stances, to yield any portion of their prejudices for the sake of 
peace, and would use language more insulting and abusive towards 
the South, if possible, than they had previously used. They saw, 
too, that in case secession should commence, the hot-headed, fa- 
natical portion of the Republican party would never consent to 
take one step, or speak a kind word in favor of healing the 
breach between the two sections, but would commence using con- 
temptuous, insulting language, and thus widen the breach. It was 
to the minds of true Union men also evident, that whenever the 
country should be placed in such a condition as this, any states- 
man or true Union man who would propose any kind of compro- 
mise; would be treated as an enemy by the Republican party. 

This was afterwards clearly proven by the manner in which the 
Republicans treated Douglas, Crittenden, and others, who strove 
to reconcile the conflicting elements in 1861. 

John Brown first obtained notoriety by his active hostility 
against slave-holders in Kansas, at the time of the conflict be- 
tween the Anti-Slavery and Pro-Slavery parties in that Territory. 

When Kansas adopted her free State Constitution, Brown left 
the new State and returned to Pennsylvania. It is evident that 
he was one of the most inveterate haters of slavery. He went to 
Kansas pretending that he wished to become one of its peaceable 
citizens, and only desired to enjoy his own anti-slavery views, and 
vote in his own way. But we find he went there, like many oth- 
ers, for a different purpose. He had no intention of settling per- 
—5 



70 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

manently in Kansas; but he did go there to aid in making it a 
free State, and he was so hostile in his feelings towards slave- 
holders, that he was just as billing to make Kansas a free State 
by fighting as by voting. He remained in Kansas as long as there 
was fighting to be done, and when he saw that the free State men 
had the majority, and the work of making it a free State was com- 
pleted, he returned to the East, in order to be ready for a new 
enterprise which he intended should raise his fame to a high grade 
amongst the great men of the present century. 

It is evident from a consideration of all the circumstances in 
the latter years of his life, that his mind was entirely occupied by 
one idea, which was the abolition of slavery. Like many other 
Northenr'men, he had passed much time in planning and consider- 
ing upon the easiest and most feasihle mode of accomplishing this 
seemingly great and meritorious work. He seems to have been 
the first anti-slavery man who actually ventured to attempt the 
practical execution of a scheme which had often been thought up- 
on and talked of by others. 

That- plan was to lead a company of anti-slavery men into the 
slave-holding States, and there organize and lead an armed insur- 
rection of slaves and free negroes. 

As to the number and station of those who advised and encour- 
aged him in this undertaking, it will probably never be known. 
It is publicly known, however, that several other individuals, and 
amongst them a very influential minister of the gospel in Boston, 
and the editor of an Anti-Slavery newspaper in the same place, 
did openly encourage the plan. The minister alluded to has since 
died in a foreign country. 'The editor was Mr. James M. Red- 
path, of the "Pine and Palm," published in Boston, and latterly 
an office-holder under the Government of the United States. 

There is no doubt that Brown was greatly encouraged and stim- 
ulated in his enterprise by reading Helper's Book.' In that book 
Helper appears to have had some knowledge that a scheme like 
that of Brown's was likely to be attempted, and he repeatedly 
threatens the slave-holders with the avenging torch of insurgent 
slaves bj flight and the sword of anti-slavery white men by day, 
unless they very speedily commenced the work of emancipation. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 71 

Mr. Helper in one passage remarks: "It is for you (slave-hold- 
ers) to say whether we shall have justice peaceably or by vio- 
lence." He promises them murder, rapine, and ruin if they re- 
fuse. It is observable that he always represented the non-slave- 
holding whites of the South as enemies to the system of slavery, 
and as being, many of them, in favor of abolition. These repre- 
sentations, made by Helper, w r ere undoubtedly seized upon with 
great avidity, and believed as absolutely true by Brown, as well as 
many thousands of Northern citizens, and even by the great mass 
of those who voted with the Republicans in 1860. Such views as 
these seemed to make the work of abolition plain and easy. 

Thus Brown concluded that it was useless to wait any longer. 
It seemed perfectly clear to his mind that if he should, at the 
head of fifteen or twenty men, capture the United States Arsenal 
at Harper's Ferry, which he might do with little or no resistance, 
he would there obtain a quantity of arms and ammunition which 
were always kept in store at that place, then march out into the 
country and inform a few of the negroes, the news would easily 
spread amongst them that a party of white men had come to set. 
them free, and they would flock around Brown as the Israelites 
flocked around Moses when he appeared as their deliverer from 
Egyptian bondage. Then he would march South ; the slaves and 
free negroes in every direction would rise and join his army ; the 
slave-holders would be panic-stricken and flee for their lives, leav- 
ing every kind of supplies and property in the hands of the 
slaves. The poor whites who were not slave-holders, would look 
on with indifference, and thus Brown would march in triumph 
through the Southern States. He chose the month of September 
for the commencement of his great undertaking, calculating that 
before the hot weather of the following year should set in, he 
would be far advanced in its completion. He had not a doubt in 
his mind as to the final result, and he expected to reap a reward 
that would fully compensate him for all his exertions. 

Brown entered the Arsenal with his men. The Arsenal had 
been for many years without any guards, as it seems never to have 
entered the mind of the Secretary of War that there would be 
such an occurrence. So the keeper was taken by surprise, and 



72 Washington's prophecy, or 

surrendered. Brown then set about raising his army of ne- 
groes to carry the muskets from the Arsenal. But the negroes, 
it seems, could not be made to understand the nature of the pro- 
ject, or else they had not the courage to take up arms in the good 
cause. So stood matters, when the Virginia authorities, being in- 
formed on the subject, sent a company to arrest Brown and his 
little army. Brown concluded to fight, but was overpowered. 
He, with several of his men, were captured, and himself and two 
others were tried and executed for murder, one of the Sheriff's 
posse having been killed in the skirmish. 

After his sentence was made known to his anti-slavery friends, 
some of them threatened to march to Charlestown and rescue him 
from the jail, but they seemed to have abandoned the project, and 
Brown was hanged. On the day appointed for his execution the 
leading radical papers of the North and East were issued with the 
badges of mourning; meetings were held in many cities and towns 
to express sympathy for him, and he was eulogized by a thousand 
tongues as a hero and martyr. 

If Brown had succeeded as he hoped and expected, in raising 
and arming a large force of negroes, who can doubt the result ? 
Who can imagine the scene of murder, rapine, and cruelty which 
would have followed. It would not have been the families of slave- 
holders alone who would have suffered, but an indiscriminate 
slaughter, without regard to age, sex, or condition would have 
been the consequence. Those who have read the history of St. 
Domingo can have no doubts' as to the truth of this remark. 

But the radical fanatics of the East and North could only view 
the attempt as a righteous, act. . Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, a Re- 
publican member of Congress, said in a. speech on the floor of the 
House, April 5th, 1860, speaking of Brown : "I believe that his 
purpose was a good one, that so far as motives went, his were 
honest and truthful. Despotism has seldom sacrificed three nobler 
victims than Brown, Stevens, and Hazlett." Can we not imagine 
the feelings of Southern Representatives on hearing such language 
from a Northern member of Congress? If we ourselves had been 
in their places, could we have listened to it with a calm, unruffled, 
Christian temper? 



FACTS CONCERNING TEE REBELLION. 7 I 

On the 2d of December, 1859, the day fixed for Brown's execu- 
tion, the Melodeon Hall in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was dr 
in mourning, and a meeting bled r his fate. Mr- 

Albert G. Riddle, the President of the meeting, made a spi 
which was published, in which he used the following w< 
"John Brown is dead, but what of that? Why is it that you 
gather together here, and all over the land the very bells h:; 
brated with the significance of the hour'.'' Do we venerate a trai- 
tor? Not at all, but because slavery has seized the old man. • 
Brown, in the gaze of two hemispheres, as a victim on whom to 
wreak its vengeance. It matters not to us that all this is done un- 
der the form of law. What of that? So, ages ago, the cl 
was made against the Saviour of the wi d a 'strong case,' : :s 

the lawyers would say, was found, and he was pronounced guilty 
and put to death. But this event has also developed and exhib- 
ited the nobleness and greatness of Brown and his associates." 

Will any one attempt to deny that this speaker sanctioned and 
justified the object of Brown's raid, which, as all know, was a 
project for a bloody and murderous insurrection? How insane 
must be the person who could compare John Brown's executiop to 
that of the Saviour of mankind. 

Judge D. R. Tilden also made a speech at the same meeting, 
from which we quote the following: "Amid the feelings I have 
had on the death of my old and valued friend, I am almost unable 
to express myself as I otherwise would. I could not fail, how- 
ever, to express to this meeting my respect, my admiration, my 
veneration for the old man whom Virginia has this day executed 
on the gallows. John Brown has gone to his grave, and we can fc 
call him back; but I propose that we baptize ourselves in his 
spirit, and stand upon a foundation of adamant in unalterable hos- 
tility to slavery." 

Judge Spalding, also, the same person who, at the Republic;'!! 
Convention of 185G, made the remarks recorded on another page 
of this work, made a speech at this meeting in Cleveland, C 
which we quote the following: "I claim John Brown as a hero, 
true to his conscience, and true to his God. We have met to hon- 
or him for his faithfulness to his convictions of duty and hisprin- 



74 Washington's prophecy, or 

ciples. We have met to honor those principles and the cause in 
which he died." 

Mr. Horace Greeley, in the New York Tribune of December 
9th, 1859, says of Brown: "Unwise the world will call him — 
reckless of artificial yet palpable obligations he certainly was ; 
his very errors were heroic, the faults of a brave, impulsive, truth- 
ful nature, impatient of wrong, and only too conscious that ' re- 
sistance to tyrants is obedience to God.' Let whoever would first 
cast a stone, ask himself whether his own noblest act was equal 
in grandeur and nobility to that for which John Brown pays the 
penalty of death on the gallows." 

Again Mr. Greeley says: "To all who have suffered for human 
good, who have been persecuted for an idea, who have been hated 
because of their efforts to make the daily path of the despised and 
unfortunate less rugged, his memory will be fragrant through gen- 
erations. It will be easier to die hereafter in a good cause, even 
on the gallows, since Brown has hallowed that mode of exit from 
the troubles and temptations of this mortal life." 

According to Mr. Greeley's notions, John Brown was a perse- 
cuted and a murdered man. The Virginians ought not to have 
attempted to arrest him or interfere with his projects. 

Our next quotation is from the Winsted Herald, a Republican 
paper in Connecticut, which afterwards had at the head of its col- 
umns the names of Lincoln and Hamlin : " For one, we confess 
we love him, we honor him, we applaud him. He was honest in 
his principles, courageous in their defense, and we have yet to be 
taught, reading from the book of inspiration, which we acknowl- 
edge, how and wherein old John Brown was a transgressor." 

Gov. John A. Andrews, of Massachusetts, presided over a 
meeting held in Boston in honor of John Brown, on the 19th of 
November, 1859. He made a speech from which we extract the 
following: " John Brown and his companions in the conflict at 
Harper's Ferry; those who fell there and those who are to suffer 
on the scaffold, are victims and martyrs to an idea. There is an 
irrepressible conflict between right and wrong. They are among 
the martyrs of that conflict. John Brown"was right. I sympa- 
thize with the man, 1 sympathize with the idea, because I sympa- 
thize with and believe in the eternal right." 



FACTS CONCERNING TEE REBELLION. 75 

Governor Andrews seems to believe that those who did not 
sympathize with John Brown and his ideas did not sympathize 
nor believe in the eternal right. We might be led to suppose that 
such a man could never do a wrong act or an unjust act. 

The New Haven Palladium mentioned Brown's execution thus: 
" John Brown had no murder or treason in his heart. His mis- 
sion was one of freedom. Eulogies, marble monuments, poems, 
and processions will celebrate his fame, and give his name to pos- 
terity as that of a good man and a true friend to his race." 

The Hartford Press speaks thus : "For the old veteran him- 
self, we have profound respect, not pity; that he asks from no 
man. He scorns excuse or apology — he saw his fellow-men in 
chains — he counted the cost, and went straight to relieve them. 
Heaven send us more of the element that makes such men." 

The Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Norwich, Conn., preached a funeral 
sermon on the subject of Brown's death, which was published in 
the Norwich Bulletin, a Republican paper. He says: "John 
Brown is a man whose moral developments so tower above those 
of the mass of men, that, by one consent, they, are pronounced 
sublime." 

On the 20th of November, 1859, a large meeting was held at 
Natick, Mass., the residence of Senator Wilson, who was present. 
The following resolution was adopted by the meeting : 

" Whebeas, Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. Therefore, 
Resolved, That it is the highest dutyjof slaves to resist their masters, and it 

is the right and duty of the people of the North to incite slaves to resistance 

and to aid them in it." 

On the 2d of December, 1859, the 'day of Brown's execution, a 
meeting was held in Philadelphia, at which Theodore Tilton, the 
editor of the New York Independent, said : "This scaffold in 
Virginia will stand as long as the world stands. No man can 
ever blot it out or put it away. It will abide forever as a monu- 
ment of a Christian man who lived a hero and died a martyr, and 
whose name to-day, bequeathed to history, shall go down through 
the world, gathering increasing honors in all coming time." 

On the 6th of November, 1859, the Rev. Edwin M. Wheelock 
preached a sermon at Dana, N. H., in which he remarked: " One- 
such man as John Brown makes total depravity impossible, and 



76 Washington's prophecy, or 

proves that American greatness did not die with Washington. 
The gallows from which he ascends to heaven will be in our poli- 
tics what the cross is in our religion. To be hanged in Virginia 
is like being crucified in Jerusalem. It is the last tribute vice pays 
to virtue." 

Such were the terms in which the radicals expressed their ven- 
eration for John Brown. They did not even hint that he was in- 
sane in the least degree. One year afterwards many of them 
.said: "You had no reason to pay any attention to John Brown, 
he was insane." Some of the active leaders- of the party immedi- 
ately commenced collecting a fund for the support of Brown's 
family, which was probably an act of true charity. We make it 
the subject of remark not to condemn the charitable object, but 
only with the view of showing, as we proceed, how generally the 
fanatical spirit existed in many northern States, as indicated by' 
the manner in which the radicals spoke of Brown. 

Theodore Hyatt had charge of the fund collected for Brown's 
family, which was raised by selling a photograph likeness of Brown 
himself. So great was the rush for them that Mr. Hyatt, on the 
19th of November, five days after the scheme was advertised in 
the New York Tribune, writes that in the space of one hundred 
hours the fund had reached two hundred dollars. Mr. Hyatt pub- 
lished in the Tribune extracts from the letters that he received 
from various parts of the country. In order to exhibit a few 
samples of the prevailing fanaticism on this subject, we quote a 
very small number of the extracts. 

Lydia Maria Child writes: "I enclose you $2. I should like 
to have every form of his likeness that can be devised, and have 
no comer of my dwelling without a memorial of him. The brave, 
self-sacrificino; old man." 

A clergyman, Waterford, N. Y., writes to Mr. Hyatt: God 
bless you and those engaged with you. " "I enclose $1 for good 
old Brown's photograph. I want it that my children may the 
more frequently have their attention called to the brave old mar- 
tyr." 

D. H., West Troy, 1ST. Y., writes: "Send me three photo- 
graphs of the greatest hero of the age." 



FACTS CONCERNING TUB REBELLION. 77 

S. S., Bethel, Conn., writes: "I wish to send my mite to 
make up the fund for the family of John Brown, that Israelite, in- 
deed, in whom is no guile." 

D. M. E., Lancaster, Ohio, writes: "Enclosed f. Let 

us in every way uphold the hand that strikes for freedom through 
the land." 

Lucy N; C, of Rochester, N. V., writes : "Enclosed find my 
subscription for the likeness of dear old John Biown." 

S. E., of New York, writes: "Every, true friend of freedom 
is morally and indirectly the accomplice of John Brown. E 
man who hates slavery, and is liot afraid to answer for his prin- 
ciples and their consequences, is his accomplice." 

Through all the speeches and writings of those radicals which 
we have quoted, no person can discover a particle of love for the 
Union. They express great love for freedom, of course meaning 
negro freedom. But they never once expressed any love for the 
Union; any desire for its preservation, nor any disposition to 
obey the laws of the Union. Their whole course shows that they 
rather wished to overthrow the Government and destroy the 
Union. Their words and actions in ten thousand instances proved 
conclusively to the minds of such men as Douglas, Filmore, ■ 
Crittenden, and Daniel Webster, and convinced the Southern 
statesmen too that the leaders and most influential men of the 
Republican party up to the beginning of 1861, were not friends 
of the Union, but would willingly have let "the Union elide" 
rather than live under it as our fathers made it. 

But yet, although the radicals must have seen that such acts as. 
those of John Brown were calculated to destroy the Union, they 
had not the courage to march for the rescue of Brown. They 
could express in such extravagant language their admiration and 
love for the old man, and yet they did not. dare to lift a finger to- 
Is rescuing him from. "the gallows. Even so, afterwards, in 
1801, they began to search the English language to find words to 
express their love for the Union of our I their hatred, 

scorn, and contempt for all who did not talk as loudly y did. 

But, although butter and honey together were not half so : 
as their words of love, veneration, and adoration of the ol I 



78 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

and the old Union in 1861, yet, when called upon to shoulder the 
musket, very few of them could be persuaded to do so. They 
talked loudly and bravely, advised their neighbors and neighbor's 
sons to go fight for the Union, but they themselves were just as 
much afraid of dying then as they were when John Brown was 
confined in the Charlestown jail, awaiting the dreadful 2d of De- 
cember, 1859. And after all these radicals had done to provoke 
discord and disunion, they, in 1861, put on the most innocent, 
sober faces that were ever seen. They said : " What in the world 
have we done that was injurious to you Southerners ? Have we 
ever interfered with your institutions or your rights ? It is all 
a mistake. Some body has been telling lies about us. You have 
been altogether misinformed. You have not the slightest reason 
to suspect us of any design against your institutions. No, in- 
deed ; we a^e true friends of the glorious old Union — the best 
system of government the sun ever shone upon. We love the glo- 
rious old flag — the stars and stripes. It must have been some crazy 
man that wrote those words, ' Tear down the flaunting lie.' John 
Brown was not one of us. He acted entirely for himself. We 
did not countenance him or approve his course. No, indeed; he 
was insane." 

This was the kind of language used by the radicals in 1861, 
within eighteen months after they had preached such sermons and 
wrote such paragraphs, praising him as a second Washington, and 
comparing him to Jesus, the Son of God. The friends of the 
Union proposed a compromise; but the radicals said, "There is 
•nothing to compromise about. We have done nothing, nor at- 
tempted to do any thing against you. We are the friends of the 
Union ; you are rebels and traitors in arms. We will make no 
compromise with rebels. The laws of the Union must be en- 
forced, and you must lay down your arms." 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 79 



CHAPTER X. 

TURNING A NEW LEAP. 

The year 1860 will, throughout all future time, be distinguished 
by American historians as the period when a great change oc- 
curred, and an entirely new chapter commenced. Up to this year 
the Democratic party had held control of the Administration for 
forty-eight years in all, since the election of Jefferson in 1801. 
As Washington was not a party President in any sense of the 
word, so. the eight years of his administration' can not be claimed 
by either party. Therefore, of course, the old Federal party nev- 
er held control of the Administration but four years, or during 
the administration of John Adams, from 1797 to 1801. The ad- 
ministration of Mr. Monroe ended March 4th, 1825. At that 
time the old Federal party had entirely disappeared. In fact, its 
organization entirely ceased before the year 1820. In 1824 the 
contest for the Presidency was entirely personal in its character. 
All the candidates, John Q. Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, 
and Win. H. Crawford, had been, for at least twenty years, mem- 
bers of the Democratic party. Their contest for the Presidency, 
therefore, was conducted without any regular party organization. 
Most of the Federalists who still remained in existence .voted for 
Mr. Adams, on account of his New England birth and education. 
In 1828 a new organization of parties took place, and instead of 
four there were only two parties again. It was then Whigs and 
Democrats instead of Federalists and Democrats. Gen. Jackson 
was then elected, and occupied the presidential chair until 1837. 
Mr. Van Buren then occupied it until 1841. The Whigs sue- 



80 Washington's prophecy, or 

ceeded in electing Gen. Harrison in November, 1840, so that the 
Administration passed into their hands in March, 1841. General 
Harrison died in April, 1841, and Mr. Tyler, the Vice President, 
occupied the chair during the remaining three years and eleven 
months, until March, 1845 Mr. Polk then filled the chair until 
March, 1849, when Gen. Taylor, the Whig President, succeeded 
him. In 1852 the Democrats elected Gen. Pierce by an over- 
whelming vote, and again obtained control of the Administration. 
In 1856 the Democrats again succeeded, and elected Mr. Buchan- 
an. The Whigs, of course, only held control of the Government 
eight years between the years 1828 and 1860. Thus the oppo- 
nents of Democracy only held the presidency twelve years since 
it was first established up to the election of 1850. As Washing- 
ton was not an opponent of Democracy during his eight years, 
and as John Q. Adums did not, during his administration, profess 
any opposition to Democratic principles, therefore, his administra- 
tion may be also set down as neutral. Therefore, we claim that, 
from 1789 up to 1861, the Democratic party had controlled the 
Government forty-eight years, the opponents of that party had 
controlled it for twelve years, and the remaining twelve years had 
been administered by neutrals, or persons of no party. During 
all the period from 1828 to 1856, the Whigs and Democrats were 
National parties. Neither of them were accused of sectional pref- 
erences. Some times the Whigs had a majority in the North 
when the Democrats had the majority in the South. At other 
times the Democrats had a majority both North and South, and 
even a greater majority in the North than they had in the South." 
Again, the Whigs some times had a majority both North and 
South, as they did when Harrison was elected in 1840, and Gen. 
Taylor in 1848. When Mr. Van Buren was elected in 1836, he 
was supported by a large proportion of Southern as well as North- 
ern voters. 

When Gen. Harrison was elected in 1840, Massachusetts, along 
with New York and Pennsylvania, as well as many of the South- 
ern States, supported him without any questions or conditions; 
not because his sentiments on the slavery question were different 
from those of Van Buren, for this was not the case, neither of 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 81 

them were Southern men, neither of them slave-holders, and no 
question was ever asked as to their views of slavery. 

Again, when Mr. Polk was elected in 1844, over Mr. Clay, he 
received the votes of New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, 
Illinois, Indiana, and many other Northern as well as Southern 
States, not because he differed from Mr. Clay as to slavery, both 
of them being Southern men and slave-holders, but because the 
majority in those States desired to uphold the Democratic princi- 
ples as to banks and tariffs. Mr. Clay at the same time received 
the votes of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Kentucky, 
North Carolina, and many other Northern and Southern States, 
merely because he was the Whig candidate. 

In 1S48 the Whigs nominated Gen. Taylor, of Louisiana, and 
the^ Democrats nominated General Cass, of Michigan. General 
Taylor, although a Southern man and a slave-holder, received 
a majority in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, 
Pennsylvania, and many other Northern States, besides a majori- 
ty of the Southern States, while Gen. Cass, although a Northern 
man, received the votes of South Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, 
Florida, Alabama, and Missouri, in the South, and those of New 
Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and others in the 
North. 

Again, in 1852, the Whigs nominated Gen. Scott and the Dem- 
ocrats Gen. Pierce, both of them Northern men, and both pro- 
fessing the same views on slavery. In that contest Massachu- 
setts and Vermont voted along with Kentucky and Tennessee for 
Gen. Scott, merely because he was the Whig candidate, while 
South Carolina, Georgia, and many other Southern States voted 
along with New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, 
Rhode Island, Michigan, Illinois, and other Northern States, for 
Gen. Pierce, merely because he was the Democratic candidate. 

Once more, in 1856, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, 
Iowa, and Wisconsin, voted along with most of the Southern 
States for Mr. Buchanan, while two Northern and two Southern 
States voted for Mr. Filmore, the Whig candidate, seven of the 
Northern States having voted for Mr. Fremont. 

Thus we see that since 1844, the Democrats never nominated a 



82 Washington's prophecy, or 

Southern citizen as a candidate for the Presidency. Mr. Cass in 
1848, Gen. Tierce, in 1852, and Mr. Buchanan in 1856, were all 
Northern men. These facts prove the mistake of those persons 
who have endeavored to show that the Southern people had con- 
trolled the Government ever since its foundation, and rebelled be- 
cause they could not again elect a Southern President. The elec- 
tion of 1860 also proves that the South did not secede because 
of their failure to elect a Democrat. The action of a portion of 
the Southern Democrats in refusing to vote for Mr. Douglas, was 
in part the work of secessionists, who had made up their minds 
to rebel or secede, and in part the work of men who felt anxious 
to secure greater protection for Southern rights. Very probably 
Mr. Andrew Johnson, in voting for Mr. Breckinridge rather than 
Mr. Douglas, was actuated by this principle. 

As we have already seen, in spite of all the bitter speeches and 
offensive conduct of the Northern radicals, yet, up to 1860 the 
feeling of mutual good will and friendship was general between 
the two sections, except that of the radicals towards the slave- 
holders, and that of the- extreme pro-slavery men of the South 
towards the radicals. 

The only signs of increasing danger lay in the fact that the radi- 
cal sentiment continued to increase in the North, as was certainly 
indicated by the increasing numbers of radical members elected 
to Congress. Before the radicals had increased in such a manner 
as to create disturbance in Congress, the general sentiment of the 
people South as well as North was harmonious towards each oth- 
er. This harmony was exhibited in the extensive trade and com- 
merce between the two sections. Also in the correspondence and 
mutual agreement of religious and benevolent societies. There 
were, imboth sections, large numbers of Catholics, Episcopalians, 
Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, and other denom- 
inations, who, in traveling from North to South, or vice versa, 
found brethren who extended to them the welcoming hand of fel- 
lowship, believing the same doctrines, and bowing to the Bame 
Deity together around the same table, commemorating the death 
of the same Saviour. 

Free Masons, Odd-Fellows, and other benevolent societies North 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 83 

and South, also pledged to each other the same assistance and 
friendship. The birth-day of our National Independence was cele- 
brated in all parts of the South as well as the North. Yankee 
Doodle and Hail Columbia were sung and played on the banks of 
the James, the Congaree, the Alabama, the Tennessee, and the 
Brazos, with as hearty good will as they were on those of the 
Susquehannah, the Hudson, the Connecticut, and the Ohio. The 
Stars and Stripes were as enthusiastically cheered by all Southern 
people in 1852, '53, '54, and '55, as they were by any portion of 
the Northern people, and far more so than they were by the anti- 
slavery radicals of the North and East. AVe challenge any North- 
ern citizen who traveled in the South during those years, to deny 
or contradict the assertion. A hymn was published and approved 
in some parts of the North in 1854, in which occurs these words : 

Tear down the flaunting lie, 

Half-mast the starry tlag; 
Insult no sunny sky" 

With hate's polluted rag. 

Who printed, and published, and approved the language of this 
hymn ? Let their names be remembered with execrations by fu- 
ture generations. 

During the Presidential contest of 1860, many distinguished 
statesmen, both North and South, expressed fears that Mr. Lincoln 
would be elected, and that as a natural consequence the majority 
of the Southern people would be so much excited as to favor se- 
cession. Their reasons for so believing were these : The people 
of the South are, from the very influence of climate, more impul- 
sive than those of the North. This was one reason. Another 
was, that ever since the settlement of English colonists on the 
continent, the descendants of those colonists have been very te- 
nacious of their rights, or of those privileges which they esteem 
as rights. Thus, when a British Governor, nearly an hundred 
years before the American Revolution, refused to allow the Vir- 
ginians to choose an officer to lead them against the Indians, the 
people presented themselves with fixed bayonets before the Gov- 
ernor, and compelled him to sign Bacon's commission. Another 
British Governor was driven out of South Carolina for Lis acts 
of petty tyranny. Again, another British Governor was c 



84 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

pletely snubbed and foiled by the people of Connecticut nearly an 
hundred years before the Revolution of '76. Then the conduct 
of Americans in relation to the British Stamp Act of 1765; that 
of the Bostonions, the New Yorkers, the Philadelphians, and the 
people of Baltimore and Charleston in relation to the tax on tea, 
with many other facts of American History, have established the 
truth that the American people both North and South will fight 
for what they regard as their rights. No matter whether the 
right claimed be a just one or not, if the minds of the mass of 
the people become satisfied that it is just, then the individual who 
will not fight for it is universally treated as a coward, or an ene- 
my to the rights cf his own section of country. The universal 
disposition of Americans to fight for their supposed rights, is so 
generally known that it needs no further proof. 

It was well known by many Northern statesmen in 1860, that 
the election of a President by the radical party would be danger- 
ous to the peace of the country, from the fact that the Southern 
people were already greatly exasperated in consequence of the 
previous proceedings of that party, and were fully convinced that 
the radicals would use every means, both fair and foul, to abolish 
slavery. But when true Union men in 1860 gave these facts as 
reasons for voting for Mr. Douglas or Mr. Bell, the radicals made 
great sport of the idea. Many of them said : " Who cares for 
the Union. If the South wants to get out of the Union, let her 
go." They said the South did not pay her share of the national 
expenses; she was a burden on the North at any rate, and we 
could get along better without her. Many others said, "No fear 
of secession, the South can not be kicked out of the Union.' 
Others, again, expressed the wish that the South would rebel s<| 
that we might give her a flogging. 

On the next day after the certain fact of Mr. Lincoln's election 
became known in Chicago, in November, 1860, Mr. John Went- 
worth, editor of a radical paper called the Chicago Democrat, 
made use of the following language in his editorial remarks : 
"Now, before Mr. Lincoln's term expires, every slave will be set 
free, and all we have to regret is that the Democrats have a ma- 
jority in Congress, and the South will make that fact an excuse 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 85 

for not seceding, and we shall not have the chance to give her a 
sound thrashing." 

Was not this beautiful language to be used by an editor and 
leader of a party professing to be more just, more benevolent and 
upright than any other body of men in the world? Very Chris- 
tian, indeed! Here we see an editor and leader of that party, 
who, in order to obtain votes for the Republican ticket? hud pre- 
tended that they had no desire to interfere with slavery in the 
States, only three days after the election, throwing off the mask, 
and declaring that the party intended to free every slave in the 
Union. This publicly declared policy, so openly expressed weeks 
before secession commenced, shows that the large majority of 
those who voted for Mr. Lincoln were duped and deceived. The 
election was an actual fraud upon one-half the voters, as proba- 
bly one-half of them would have voted for Douglas or Bell if they 
had known beforehand the real effect of the election. 

In the election of 1860, the following was the popular and 
electoral vote cast for each of the candidates : 

Mr Lincoln, popular vote, 1,846,203 Electoral vote, 180 
Douglas, " " 1,564,650 " " 12 

Breckenridge, " 675,782 " " 72 

Bell « " 580,249 " " 39 






Total, 4,666,884 303 

As the whole number of electoral votes in 1860 was 303, so, 
according to the Constitution, it required 152 electoral votes to 
elect tke°President, Mr. Lincoln having 180 was, of course, law- 
fully elected. The whole popular vote amounted to four millions 
six hundred and sixty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty-four. 
Of this vote Mr. Lincoln only received two-fifths, and yet he re- 
ceived 180 electoral votes. 

Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge together, received two million 
eight hundred and twenty thousand six hundred and eighty-one of 
the popular vote, and only one hundred and twenty-three electoral 
votes. So, if Mr. Douglas had been the only candidate besides 
Mr. Lincoln, and had received all of the two million eight hun- 
dred and twenty thousand six hundred and eighty-one votes of 

—6 



86 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

the people, Mr. Lincoln, by receiving one million eight hundred 
and forty-six thousand two hundred and three votes, would still 
be elected, because the majority of electoral votes, and not the 
majority of popular votes, decides the question. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 87 



CHAPTER XL 

TIIE "STIFF-BACKED" MEN. 

In the election of 1860, a President was elected, as we have 
remarked, who did not receive a majority of the votes of the peo- 
ple. And the party which prevailed, although nearly a million 
votes weaker than the whole number opposed to them, only com- 
posed part of the people in one section, for in the slave States 
Mr. Lincoln only received a few thousand votes, and those nearly 
all in the State of Missouri. 

Mr. Douglas, who received nearly as many votes as Mr. Lin- 
coln, did not obtain the electoral vote of any States except New 
Jersey and Missouri. He received large numbers of votes in 
New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and other States, 
but in each of those States Mr. Lincoln received a higher number 
than Mr. Douglas, and the candidate receiving the highest num- 
ber, of course receives the electoral vote of that State. Thus 
Mr. Lincoln, in Illinois, received about 160,000, while Mr. Doug- 
las received only a few over 150,000 in that State. In this man- 
ner Mr. Lincoln received the electoral votes of a sufficient num- 
ber of Northern States to elect him without the vote of any slave- 
holding State, and without receiving more than two-fifths of the 
popular vote. 

Soon after the result of the election became known the Gover- 
nor of South Carolina called a State Convention, which met on 
the 17th of December. 

The United States Congress met at Washington on the 3d of 
December, and as, at that time, universal alarm was felt through- 



88 Washington's prophecy, or 

out the country, almost the first action in both Houses was to 
make inquiry as to what measures were necessary in order to 
quiet the agitation and restore harmony between the sections. 
Petitions signed by vast multitudes of citizens from all parts of 
the Union were sent to Congress praying for some measure of 
reconciliation to be speedily adopted. In each House of Congress 
could be found every shade of opinion. The angry but deter- 
mined secessionist ; the more mild and moderate Southener, anx- 
ious for reconciliation, and willing to meet the radicals half way 
in restoring harmony; the haughty, self-conceited, unbending 
radical; the more mild, conservative, and half repenting Republi- 
can, and the anxious, conciliating, devoted Unionist, were all 
there. Some of the secessionists admitted that they expected no 
compromise and did not wish for any. They considered that the 
South had borne with taunts, insults, and abuse, until forbearance 
had ceased to be a virtue. 

The violent radicals, on the other hand, said they had elected 
their President Constitutionally, and they would not vote for any 
measure as a condition of peace or compromise. There were 
many Southern members who wished and hoped for the passage 
of some act which would calm the excitement of their constitu- 
ents, and thus preserve peace and Union. There were, also, a few 
Republicans who attempted to conciliate, but they were put down 
and disowned by the majority of their party. 

In the debate upon Mr. Buchanan's Message of the 2d Decem- 
ber, Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, spoke as follows in the 
Senate: "As to the general tone of the Message, every body 
will say that it is eminently patriotic, and I agree with a great 
deal that is in it; but I think it falls short cf stating the case that 
js now before the country. It is not, for example, merely, that 
a dangerous man has been elected to the Presidency of these 
United States. We know that under our complicated system that 
might very well occur, and he be powerless; but I assert that the 
new President has been elected because he was known to be a 
dangerous man. He avows the principle that is known as the 
' Irrepressible Conflict,' He declares that it is the purpose of the 
North to make war upon my section until its social system has 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 89 

been destroyed, and for that he was taken up and elected. That 
declaration of war is dangerous, because it has been indorsed by 
a majority of the voters in the free States in the late election. It 
is this great, remarkable, and dangerous fact that has filled my 
section with alarm and dread for the future. Mr. Buchanan says 
in his Message, that Mr. Lincoln may be powerless by reason of 
the opposition in Congress now, but that is only a temporary re- 
lief. Every body knows that the majority which has borne Mr. 
Lincoln in the chair, can control all the departments of this Gov- 
ernment. Why, sir, five or six of our conservative Senators are 
compelled to give place to others on the 4th of March. Both the 
Senators from Indiana, and the Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Doug- 
las,) and other gentlemen, would be beaten by that same majority, 
if it were not that their terms have time to run. They must, 
however, be cut down at no distant day. Not only that', but if 
the House of Representatives is, to some little extent, divided, 
how long can it continue thus? We all know that New England 
has presented an unbroken front for some time past, and does any 
man doubt the same organization that elected Abraham Lincoln 
can make a clear majority of both Houses of Congress? The ef- 
forts of the Abolitionists will be directed to the few doubtful Dis- 
tricts, and they will soon be subjected to their control. So pow- 
erful and steady is the current of their progress that it will soon 
govern the entire North. In this way they will soon control the 
President, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and all 
the officers of the Government. But this is not the worst feature 
of the case. We are not only to be governed by a sectional dom- 
ination which does not respect our rights, but by one, the guiding 
principle of which is hostility to the Southern States. It is that, 
Mr. President, that has alarmed the country, and it is idle for gen- 
tlemen to talk to us about this being done under the forms of the 
Constitution." 

In order to secure definite action in favor of harmony, Mr. 
Crittenden, of Kentucky, introduced a number of resolutions, 
providing for certain amendments of the Constitution, which he 
was well convinced, would satisfy the Southern people and restore 
harmony without violating the original and essential principles of 



90 Washington's prophecy, or 

the Union and Government. On these resolutions, then and now 
known as the Crittenden Compromise Resolutions, a committee 
of thirteen was appointed in the Senate, and one of thirty-three 
in the House of Representatives. But, although these resolutions 
were warmly supported by a number of Union men from the 
South, the Hon. Andrew Johnson, and many others, besides all 
the Democratic members from the North, they were rejected in 
consequence of the opposition of the radical Republicans. They 
were put off, postponed, and laid over from time to time by the 
Republican members. On one occasion, when by previous ap- 
pointment, the Compromise Resolutions were called up, they were 
set aside, because the radicals had determined to act on the Pa- 
cific Railroad bill. 

Mr. Crittenden, on this occasion, spoke as follows: "I can not 
think, Mr. President, of voting for the Pacific Railroad bill while 
this other measure is undetermined. It has been said of old that 
men build as if they never expected to die. We seem to be act- 
ing upon that hypothesis ; we are proposing to build railroads for 
future generations, when the very existence of the country is in 
danger. I can not think of voting for any measure at this time. 
Build up the Union first, and then talk about building the Pacific 
Railroad. It seems to me very solemn, trifling before the people, 
that the Senate should sit here legislating upon the making of 
railroads for future generations and for a nation, when that na- 
tion is trembling upon a point between life and death." 

Mr. Wade, of Ohio, one of the "stiff-backed men," made a 
short speech in which he said: "I have now, for about a week, 
listened to the complaints of the other side patiently, and with a 
desire to ascertain what was the particular difficulty under which 
they were laboring. Many of those who have supposed them- 
selves aggrieved have spoken, but I confess that I am now totally 
unable to understand precisely what it is of which they complain. 
If they have fears as to the course that we may hereafter pursue, 
they are mere apprehensions — a bare suspicion — arising, I fear, 
out of their unwarrantable prejudices, and nothing else." 

Mr. Wade pretended that he never had heard of any thing in 
the Xorth that was dangerous to the interests of the Southern 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 91 

people ; he pretended to believe that his party had no design 
against the South, and that some body had been telling lies on 
the radicals, and misrepresenting them to the Southern people. 
He seemed to forget entirely the fact that hundreds of violent 
speeches had been made by radicals on the floor of Congress, 
aimed directly at irritating Southern members. He seemed to 
have forgotten that he, himself, only one short year before, had 
made one of those violent harrangues in the Senate, and had said 
to the Southern Senators: "If one of your slaves runs away 
and gets into Ohio, ninety-nine in a hundred of my constituents 
would rather see him escape than help you catch him." 

Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, remarked as follows: "I avow 
here, I do not know whether or not I shall be sustained by those 
who usually act with me, if the issue which is presented is that 
the constitutional will of the public opinion of this country, ex- 
pressed through the forms of the Constitution, will not be sub- 
mitted to and war is the alternative, let it come in any form or in 
any shape." 

How strangely similar was this to Mr. Hale's language in the 
Senate, Feb. 26th, 1856. At that time he had said: "Sir, I 
hope it will come, and if it comes to blood, let blood come." 

In order to understand why it was that so many Republican 
members of Congress refused to favor any measure of compromise 
or reconciliation, it must be recollected that they had a plan laid 
long before. It should not be forgotten that Mr. Seward, in 1850, 
said, in a speech in the United States Senate, substantially as fol- 
lows : "You can take your choice, permit the abolition of slavery 
peaceably and receive compensation for your slaves, or dissolve 
the Union and bring on war, producing violent but immediate 
emancipation." 

This policy had been determined upon by the radicals for years. 
They had long ago determined that war with the South was the 
best way to secure abolition. Very probably none of them sup- 
posed that it would require so much blood and expense as it after- 
wards did, but they felt sure of the result. Therefore, they stood 
firm and unmoved, pretending to be as innocent as lambs. And 
to every proposal of concession they said : " Oh, there is nothing 
to compromise about; we have done nothing to injure the South. 



92 Washington's prophecy, or 

She is the party that is doing wrong; we are perfectly innocent." 

They stood in a position very similar to that occupied by a 
certain blood-thirsty individual- towards one of his neighbors. Said 
he, "I hope he will strike me one of these days. I intend to kill 
him at any rate ; but I want him to strike the first blow. Then I 
can moke it appear an act of self-defense." 

During the months of December, 1860, and January, 1861, the 
States of South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Flor- 
ida, Georgia, and North Carolina, each passed ordinances^of se- 
cession, and seized most of the forts and arsenals within their 
limits. 

The Legislature of Virginia, about the first of January, 1861, 
proposed that a Peace Conference should be held, composed of 
delegates from every State, for the purpose of consulting upon 
the crisis, and agreeing upon terms of reconciliation. This Con- 
ference met at Washington, February 4th. Twenty-one States 
were represented. Great hopes were entertained by the friends 
of the Union that this body would recommend a plan that would 
be acceptable. In relation to this Conference, correspondents in 
South Carolina wrote as follows: "We look with hope to the 
movement just announced as having been started in the Virginia 
Legislature. Virginia will be listened to in spite of all the press 
can say. Four-fifths of our people will agree to any arrange- 
ment that shall guarantee our rights and be acceptable to the oth- 
er Southern States." 

The Peace Conference at its adjournment on the 19th of Feb- 
ruary, sent to Congress seven propositions to be submitted as 
amendments to the Constitution, which, if adopted and sanctioned 
by a two-third vote in each House, would undoubtedly have re- 
stored harmony. When they were under consideration, Mr. Crit- 
tenden supported them with the hope that they would meet with 
a better reception than his resolutions. Mr. Baker, of Oregon, a 
Republican Senator, abandoned the rest of his party so far as to 
make -a speech in favor of the Peace Conference propositions. 
From his speech we quote the following: "Mr. President, let us 
be just to those propositions. As a Republican, I give up some- 
thing when I vote for them; but remember, sir, I am not voting 
for them now. I am only voting to submit them to the people. 



PACTS CONCERNING TIIE REBELLION. 93 

Therefore, at the polls, at last, I shall be governed as an individ- 
ual citizen by my convictions at the moment, of what the ultimate 
result of those propositions will be. But I am not voting for that 
to-day. I am saying, 'People of the United States, I submit it 
to you ; twenty States demand it ; the peace of the country re- 
quire it. There is dissolution in the atmosphere. States have 
gone off; others threaten.' Now, not what I wish, not what I 
want, not what I would have, but all that I can get is before me. 
I know I do no harm. If the people of Oregon do not like it, 
they can easily reject it. If the people of Pennsylvania will not 
have it, they can easily throw it aside. If they do not believe 
there is danger of dissolution; if they prefer dissolution; if they 
think they can compel fifteen States to come back; or if they 
think they will not go out, let them reject it. I repeat again, it 
is their business, not mine. But, sir, whether I vote for it at the 
polls or not, in voting for it here, it may be said that I give up 
some of my principles. I am appealed to often. It is said to 
me, you believed in the Chicago Platform. Suppose I did. Well, 
this varies from the Chicago Platform. Suppose it does. I stand 
here to-day, I believe, in the presence of greater events than the 
making of a President. I stand, as I believe, in the presence of 
peace and war; and if it were true, that 'I did violate the Chicago 
Platform, the Chicago Platform is not a Constitution of the United 
States to me." 

But with all his exertions, Mr. Baker could not induce one of 
his brother Republicans in the Senate to vote for any compromise 
whatever. They had their plans laid and only waited for the 
march of events. Hence, they were determined not to give the 
people any opportunity for voting on the compromise, lest peace 
might be preserved, and the favorite project of abolition not suc- 
ceed. 

Mr. Beale, a Republican Representative from New York, said: 
"Sir, I am opposed to any and all compromises, because they are 
to be extorted from us by threats of dissolution of the Union if 
we refuse. I desire to see the strength of this Government tested, 
and to know whether the Union is a federal rope of sand, to be 
washed away by every wave of passion, or an indissoluble Gov- 
ernment. Also because the sentiments of nine-tenths of the Re- 



94 Washington's prophecy, or 

publicans of the free States are opposed to compromise of prin- 
ciple." 

Tims the radical members spoke and acted during this exciting 
session. 

Mr. Douglas, in addressing the Senate on one occasion, re- 
marked as follows : " Sir, I must say in all frankness, that I re- 
gard no man as friendly to the Union who is unwilling to enter 
upon such a system of pacification and compromise as will pre- 
serve it. In my opinion, there is a deliberate plot to break up 
this Union under the pretense of preserving it. In my opinion 
there are as many disunionists on this floor, and on the floor of 
the other branch of Congress from the North, as from the South ; 
men who have reasoned themselves into the belief that it is wiser 
and better to drive the sections into collision to force disunion, 
and to get up a war, to have blood shed and render reunion im- 
possible, and then make a treaty of peace. I hope I am mistaken 
in this. I have too much respect for the intelligence of Senators 
to believe for one moment that they hope to preserve the Union 
by military force. They know that the use of military force, pro- 
ducing collision and blood-shed, must result in a civil Avar between 
fifteen States on one side, and the remainder of the States on the 
other. How can you avoid this result. You must do one of two 
things, either settle the difficulty amicably or by the sword. The 
amicable settlement is a perpetuation of the Union, the use of the 
sword is war, disunion, and separation now and forever." 

On the last day of the session, Mr. Pugh, of Ohio, in a short 
speech, made the following remarks : " The Crittenden Proposi- 
tion has been indorsed by the almost unanimous vote of the Leg- 
islature of Kentucky. It has been indorsed by the Legislature of 
the noble old Commonwealth of Virginia. It has been petitioned 
for by a larger number of voters than any proposition that was 
ever before Congress. I believe in my heart to-day, that it would 
carry an overwhelming majority in my State ; aye, sir, and in 
nearly every State of the Union. Before the Senators from Mis- 
sissippi left this chamber, I heard one of them who now assumes, 
at least, to be President of the Southern Confederacy, propose to 
accept and maintain the Union if that proposition could receive the 



FACTS CONCERNING TIIE REBELLION. 95 

vote that it ought to receive from the other side of this chamber." 
Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, observed, in relation to this statement 
of Mr. Pugh, that it was true. He thus expressed himself: "The 
Senator has said that if the Crittenden Proposition could have 
been passed early in the session, it would have saved all the States 
except South Carolina. I firmly believe it would. While the 
Crittenden Proposition was not in accordance with my cherished 
views, I avowed my readiness to accept it, in order to save the 
Union if we could unite upon it. No man has labored harder 
than I have to get it passed. I can confirm the Senator's declar- 
ation, that Senator Davis himself, when on the committee of thir- 
teen, was ready at all times to compromise on the Crittenden 
Proposition. I will go further and say that Mr. Toombs was 
also." 

Mr. Douglas seems to have understood very correctly the inten- 
tions of the radicals. During the session of the Peace Confer- 
ence, a few of the delegates from Northern and Eastern States 
showed signs of relenting, and of a disposition to avoid blood- 
shed, whereupon, Mr. Chandler, Republican Senator from Michi- 
gan, who had previously advised the Governor of his State not to 
send any delegates to the Conference, immediately wrote to the 
Governor to send on the delegates. A part of his letter read in 
substance as follows : " Send on the delegates. Some of the 
manufacturing States think that a fight would be awful. My opin- 
ion is that this Union will not be worth a rush without a little 
blood-letting. Send ' stiff-backed men' or none." 

Thus the people of the United States, a country in which the 
majority are supposed to govern, were forced into a war which 
cost a million of lives and a public debt of three thousand mil- 
lions of dollars, when it was well known that a majority of the 
people, if permitted to vote on the Crittenden Compromise, would 
have maintained the Union without war. But this did not suit 
the views of the radicals, because it did not free the negroes and 
make them politically equal with the white race. And this they 
were determined to do at every cost and every hazard, except their 
own lives and limbs, and against the wishes of a majority of the 
people of the United States. 



96 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 



CHAPTER XII. 

FIRING ON THE ELAG. 

When the seven seceding States had taken possession of near- 
ly all the forts belonging to the Government, a loud outcry was 
made by multitudes of Republicans because Mr. Buchanan did not 
call for troops and send reinforcements to the forts. But while 
thus censuring and abusing the President, they kept out of sight 
the fact that the regular army, since the Mexican war, had been at 
no time more than fifteen thousand strong, and all these were re- 
quired to protect the people of the new Territories against Indian 
depredations. Economy was the policy of the Government, and 
the Republicans, in their speeches and campaign documents, ac- 
cused the Democrats of extravagance and corruption, when the 
whole expense of the Government was only sixty or seventy mil- 
lions per year. It is true, Mr. Buchanan might have called for 
volunteers to suppress the insurrection, but such was the state of 
feeling in the South that war would only have been precipitated 
three months sooner than it actually was. Any reflecting mind 
must have seen that any movement towards coercion would have 
caused immediate collision and bloodshed, while all true Union 
men were in hopes of preserving the Union by compromise. But 
the radicals hoped that Mr. Buchanan would use force, and thus 
plunge the country into war and make conciliation impossible. 

Americans have always admired the course of Win. Pitt in the 
British Parliament in 1774. The King at that time had a strong 
army holding Boston, in order to prevent rebellion. But the 
very presence of an army in Boston rendered reconciliation 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 97 

almost impossible. The people were goaded on to resistance by 
the very threat of coercion. Under these circumstances, Pitt en- 
treated the King and Ministry to withdraw the troops from Bos- 
ton. And after the war commenced in 1775, Pitt, in one of his 
speeches said: "If I was an American, as I am an Englishman, 
I never would lay down my arms while a single British soldier 
remained in the country, never, never." 

Win. Pitt, Edmund Burke, Charles J. Fox, and other English- 
men, in 1774, knew some thing of the character of the American 
people. And so, likewise, did the Republican leaders in January, 
1861. But those leaders had an object to accomplish, and were 
afraid they could not accomplish it without war. They said, "If 
Mr. Buchanan had only been such a man as Jackson, the rebellion 
would have been nipped in the bud." But they only used this 
language in order to make it appear that they venerated the memo- 
ry of one whom most of them had often abused as one of the 
Southern Oligarchs. Mr. Buchanan's position was far different 
from that of Gen. Jackson in 1832. Gen. Jackson had only to 
compel the submission of South Carolina, and at a time when 
nearly half of her own people were opposed to the acts of her 
Governor and Legislature. The other Southern States, every one, 
stood up for the Union and for the Constitution, so that South 
Carolina stood alone, and her own people also divided, nearly half 
being for the Union. Then the question was not slavery, but the 
tariff. Every one who reads Gen. Jackson's Farewell Address is 
well aware how strongly he condemned the Abolitionists of 1837. 
It is very probable that if he had been President in 1856, when 
they were resisting the Fugitive Slave Law, and threatening to 
rise in arms against the Government, he would have hanged a 
number of -them for treason. 

On the 4th of March, 1861, Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. In 
his Inaugural Address he evidently aimed to go as far in using 
conciliatory language as the warlike temper of his party would 
possibly permit. In that address he admits that the framers of 
the Constitution evidently intended to recognize the right of any 
State- to hold slaves and to recover them when they escaped into 
other States. And on this point he says: "The intention of 



98 Washington's prophecy, or 

the law-giver is the law." He also alludes to the fact that all of- 
ficers and members of the Government had solemnly sworn to 
obey and fulfill the Constitution in its very letter. 

That lie afterwards pursued a course, that in one short month 
led to the firing on Sumter, need not to be rehearsed. Whether 
he was beguiled or forced into it by the same kind of "pressure"' 
that he afterwards acknowledged as forcing him to issue the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation, will probably never be known. But one 
thing is certain, the radicals were glad when Sumter was fired up- 
on by the rebels. They saw in that act the very blow which they 
had so long hoped for. The calling of the seventy-five thousand 
volunteers followed. Then the defeat of McDowell at Bull Run. 
If it had been by any means certain that war would restore the 
Union, then the disunionists of 1856, who became such violent 
Union men after the capture of Fort Sumter in 1861, might have 
laid some kind of claim to honesty and sincerity of feelings. But 
the fact that the final result of the war was altogether uncertain, 
that the interference of France and England was very probable, 
and that the Union would, in that event, be broken up forever, 
renders the manner in which they were willing to risk the life of 
the Union an unanswerable evidence that they cared nothing for 
the Union, and every thing for the negro. In less than two years 
after the war commenced, our Government was forced to humble 
itself to the arrogant demand of England and give up Mason and 
Slidell, in order to avoid war with her. And yet more, the Em- 
peror Napoleon planted a monarchy in Mexico, when he knew that 
he would not dare to attempt it had it not been for the rebellion. 
It is folly to pretend that we could have fought France and Eng- 
land and conquered the South at the same time. 

The defeats which our armies suffered at Bull Run, Great Beth- 
el, Ball's Bluff, and Lexington, Mo., in 1861; at Bull Run, Bel- 
mont, Fredericksburg, and the Chick ahominy, in 1862; at Chancel- 
lorville and Chickamaugua in 1863; and the victories gained by the 
rebels over Gen. Banks and other officers in 1861, together with 
the dreadful loss of life at Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing, 
Murfreesborough, Perryville, Pea Ridge, Antietam, South Moun- 
tain, Spottsylvania, and the Wilderness, Petersburg and Beaufort, 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 99 

all go to show that the South came near gaining her independence 

without being openly aided by France or England, thus rendering 
it certain that with their assistance she would have been success- 
ful. All this the radicals risked knowingly, wilfully, and deliber- 
ately, thus proving the extreme intensity of their love for the 
Union. We might as well profess sincere attachment to a friend, 
while, at the same time, we are forcing him into a position where he 
must, in all probability, lose his property and lifo, while there is 
no necessity whatever for placing him in that position. 

Taking the whole of their conduct into view, from 1831 to 1866, 
receiving all their crooked paths, then scanning the work in 
which they are now engaged, we are irresistibly led to the con- 
clusion that these radicals were not only enemies to the Union in 
1840 and '44, but they have been so ever since, and arc so now, 
in spite of all their professedly intense devotion to it. In 1861 
they said to their neighbors, " Go fight for the Union ; those wick- 
ed rebels will destroy it if you do not; you need not fight to free 
the negroes ? but fight for the Union." 

In 1862 they said the negroes must be free at all hazards. "It 
is military necessity ; we cannot save the Union unless we pro- 
claim the negroes free. God will not assist us in this war unless 
we free the negroes." But the rebels defeated our armies after 
the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. So they said, " We 
must make soldiers out of the negroes; then we can have an ex- 
cuse for making them voters. And if the people should object to 
making them voters, then we can work on their sympathies by 
talking of the cruelty of refusing the privileges of citizens to 
four millions of loyal people who have hazarded their lives on the 
bloody battle-field for the glorious Union framed by our fathers." 
But how are they to compel people who do not wish to vote along 
with negroes to submit to it? Congress has no power to control 
the States in this matter, and the people of the States will object. 
" That is easily arranged," says the radical. " We can alter the 
Constitution, and give Congress power to compel the people of 
all the States to allow negro suffrage. "We need not give the peo- 
ple an opportunity of voting on the question. If we should, our 
projects will be defeated. Therefore, let the State Legislatures 



100 Washington's prophecy, or 

be managed to have the amendments adopted without submitting 
it to the people. We have managed to secure emancipation with- 
out any vote of the people, and now for negro-equality whether 
the people will or no.'' 

For various purposes the radicals have now offered two or three 
dozen amendments^to the Constitution, by which the original sys- 
tem of our Government will be entirely qhanged; the rights of 
States will be, in a great measure, destroyed. The most probable 
result will be that, in the midst of the general overturning that 
these amendments will cause, a new source of difficulty will be 
found, East, West, North, or South, and the country will again be 
involved in war, until we shall be compelled to see the Union di- 
vided, or else return to the old principles of State Rights as held 
by our fathers. The radical leaders pretend to believe that negro 
suffrage will be the certain means of preserving the Union. They 
arfue, the Southern people are still rebels at heart, and will not 
yield willing obedience to the laws, and, therefore, the white men 
of the South ought to be deprived of the right of voting, while 
the negroes arc permitted to enjoy it as the only loyal citizens. 
Thus the radical continues to work, preach, and legislate for the 
exclusive benefit of negroes, striving to render them the principle 
objects of Congressional legislation. From their present course 
a foreigner might be led to suppose that our Government was 
made for the spec.al benefit of negroes, and the interests of the 
white race are only secondary objects. And all this legislation, 
they say, is necessary for the preservation of the Union. This 
sort of an excuse may deceive many true Union men, but will not 
frighten the majority of American citizens. 

A desire to punish rebels and traitors is also another pretense. 
If we desire to prevent emigration to the South, and to discour- 
age free intercourse between the North and South, undoubtedly 
one of the most feasible means of doing so is to compel the South- 
ern people to receive the negro as their equals. The effect of 
such compulsion will generally be to place the votes of the unlet- 
tered mass of blacks under the control of their employers and of 
such white men as see proper to use them. Of course the North- 
ern radicals can not spare from home such a multitude of agents 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 101 

as would be necessary to oversee the votes of the negroes at elec- 
tions, and the consequent effects of negro suffrage will not be 
dangerous except where it leads to an opposition of races or col- 
ors. That the individuals who took up arms and fought against 
the authority of the United States were technically guilty of trea- 
son against the Government, but few persons will deny. Conse- 
quently, if it were possible to go through the formalities of pub- 
licly trying and convicting by due process of law, several millions 
of individuals, male and female, giving to each a separate and fair 
trial by jury, probably two-thirds of the adult population of the 
South would be hanged. And so might George Washington, and 
two thirds of the adult population of North America have been legal- 
ly executed if they had unhappily been conquered by Great Britain. 
Our radicals, however, generally seem to wish for a kind of whole- 
sale trial, without legal Judges or juries, and a wholesale mode of 
punishment, by which no distinction is made between innocent 
and guilty. The old maxim of law, that "every person is sup- 
posed innocent until he is proved guilty," they wish to reverse, 
and punish every person who can not prove himself innocent in 
heart as well as conduct. 

The secessionists saw a President elected who had proclaimed 
himself in favor of the extinction of slavery without the consent 
of the people. They saw that by his choice, Mr. Seward, who 
had for ten years previously avowed the design of compelling eman- 
cipation either peaceably or by violence, was chosen as Secretary 
of State, the head of the Cabinet. The secessionists rebelled — 
they levied war against the Government, and being conquered, 
they are liable to be punished according to law, if tried and con- 
victed under the Constitutional laws of Congress. They can 
produce no article of the Constitution that will excuse them from 
the legal penalties. 

—7 



102 Washington's prophecy, or 



CHAPTER XIII. 

FORTS WARREN AND LAFAYETTE. 

When the war commenced there were multitudes of persons in 
many parts of the Union who conscientiously believed that, al- 
though the rebellion was in itself unjustifiable, hasty, and without 
sufficient cause, yet that from the fact that the Northern States, 
many of them, had also acted unjustifiably towards the South, we, 
as brethren of one great nation, ought not to use military force, 
but to restore the Union by compromise. They argued that it 
was unjust and tyranical to use military force in compelling one 
section of the Union to yield obedience to the commands and or- 
dinances established by the people of another section. 

Thus argued Horace Greeley in November, 1860. In the Tri- 
bune he argued as follows: "We can not see why fifteen States 
of the Union have not the same right to secede from this Govern- 
ment in 1860, that thirteen States had for seceding from the Brit- 
ish Government in 1776." 

Again, Mr. Greeley said: "We hope never to live in a Union 
one-half of which is pinned to the other by bayonets." 

A speech made by Mr. Lincoln in Congress in 1848, also has 
these words: "Any people any where, who are able, have the 
right to throw off the Government under which they live, and set 
up a new one that suits them better. And any portion of any 
people have the right to revolutionize and make their own so 
much of the country as they can." 

Such speeches as these, together with hundreds of others made 
in the North at various times, undoubtedly produced great infiu- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 103 

ence in leading the Southern people to believe that even the radi- 
cals would be willing to let the South go, rather than commence 
war to force them to remain in the Union. Many Northern peo- 
ple, therefore, argued that it was wrong to use military force in 
view of ail the circumstances of our history. Now, although 
Mr. Greeley and other Republicans, had freely used such argu- 
ments, yet, when Democrats spoke in the same manner, they were 
universally branded as secessionists, traitors, and rebel-sympathi- 
zers. A universal howl was raised against them by the radicals, 
and large numbers of Democrats in New York, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and other 
States were seized by professed detectives and conveyed in the 
most hurried manner to military prisons. In very many of these 
instances the persons who were imprisoned were not, and never 
had been violent opposers of the war, but were arrested merely to 
gratify the malice or revenge of political opponents. 

Ex-President Pierce, of New Hampshire, was at one time 
threatened with arrest, but the threat was not executed. In all 
cases it was claimed by the officers who made the arrests, that 
they had their orders from the President. That these arrests 
were in all cases unjust, illegal and arbitrary, is evident from the 
following considerations : 

It is a well-known principle of the Constitution that " no per- 
son should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due 
process of , law." Again, the Constitution provides that all per- 
sons accused of crime, shall have the right of a speedy trial by an 
impartial jury of the State and District in which the supposed 
crime shall have been committed, and to have the aid of counsel 
for his defense, and process to compel the attendance of witness- 
es in his behalf. The Constitution was intended to protect the 
rights of individuals against arbitrary power. No person, not 
even the President, should have power to oppress his political op- 
ponent under any pretext. Many persons, who were not proved 
to have uttered a single word in favor of the rebels, nor against 
the Administration, were ruined in property and health by con- 
finement in military prisons, where they were treated like con- 
victs who had been guilty of high crimes. If the President or- 



104 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

clered their arrests, he acted unjustly, because he, in most cases, 
had no personal knowledge of the individuals arrested, nor of 
their character or conduct, and thus lent himself as a tool in the 
hands of political persecutors, and that -without any lawful au- 
thority for giving such orders. Many radicals attempted to justi- 
fy these arrests by asserting that, under the circumstances, as the 
President had a right to suspend the privilege of habeas corpus, 
therefore, he did not violate the Constitution in ordering these ar- 
rests. But every student of the Constitution is aware that the 
suspension of the habeas corpus privilege does not deprive any 
citizen of his right to a speedy, public, and impartial trial. The 
suspension of habeas corpus merely prevents the person arrested 
from being taken out of the custody of the officers or persons 
who are detaining him. It does not, in the least, deprive him of 
the Constitutional right to a speedy, public, and impartial trial. 
Therefore, these acts of the President were as clearly unauthor- 
ized as would have been the act of hanging men without any trial. 
These arrests were not made by authority of any law of Congress, 
because, although Congress made a law to punish persons for 
discouraging enlistments, that same law required that such per- 
sons should be tried by the civil courts, and by the usual process 
of indictment and trial within the State and district where the 
the crime was committed. But these persons who were arrested 
by order of the President, carried away from their own States 
and thrust into military prisons, were not arrested nor imprison- 
ed by any law whatever, but on the contrary, in utter violation of 
all law. If they had been accused as spies, or as aiders and abet- 
tors of the rebels, then they should have been tried as such, and 
if legally convicted, they should have been legally punished. 

If the President of the United States should commit a wilful 
murder, the law, if properly enforced, would try him and execute 
him in the same manner as any other citizen. His office does 
not give him any lawful protection against the law itself. If he 
commits a robbery, rape, or theft, the law does not excuse him 
from punishment. Why should he be excused if he is guilty of 
false imprisonment? In every State the person who imprisons 
another without just cause, when the act is proved against him, 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 105 

no matter whether he be an officer or not, he is liable for all dam- 
ages which the injured person has suffered in person or property 
or character by such imprisonment. But our radicals, when in- 
formed of these unlawful arrests, said, "Good enough for them. 
There ought to be twice as many arrested. They are all traitors 
and ought to be imprisoned or hanged." 

Stop a moment, Mr. Radical, how do you know these men are 
traitors? Did you see each of them and hear all the evidence from 
disinterested witnesses against them? "Oh, no; but I know the 
Government would not arrest them and send them to prison with- 
out good cause." Then, of course, my friend, if any future 
President should, hereafter, cause you to be taken from your fam- 
ily and confined in a military prison, on bread and water, treated 
like a convicted criminal, all your friends and neighbors will be 
justified in supposing that the Government had good cause for the 
act, and is not bound to give any account of the cause or reason 
for such treatment. You justify the President in violating the 
laws of his country. You thereby, virtually say, the President 
is above the law, and if he chooses, he may go through the streets 
and shoot down any personal enemy that he meets, and yet be 
justifiable or excusable from legal punishment. " Yes, but the 
President is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, and in 
time of rebellion or war, he has more authority than in time of 
peace." This is altogether a wrong idea. The President has no 
authority, either in war or peace, except that which the Constitu- 
tion gives him. He is liable to impeachment for violating the 
Constitution. The Constitution created the office of President; 
declares how he shall be elected, and what his duty shall be.^ Ex- 
cept in tho Constitutional performance of his duties, he is no 
more than a private citizen. He has no more authority to act as 
a constable or a Judge, than any common laborer would have. 
The President can not make a law upon any subject. If he is- 
sues a proclamation declaring that a citizen, living peaceably at 
his home, shall be forced into the army, or shall surrender his 
property, unless Congress has authorized him so to do, the proc- 
lamation is an act of violent, tyrannical, and despotic usurpation, 
far greater than that [of King George and his Ministers in taxing 



106 "Washington's prophecy, or 

the American people. And if such proclamation should be au- 
thorized by Congress, it "would still be an usurpation, unless the 
act should be authorized by the Constitution itself. 

Do you ask why? I answer, that clause of the Constitution 
which says: ".All powers not delegated to the United States are 
reserved to the States or people of the States," positively forbids 
the assumption of such powers. 

The people of the United States never gave to any person any 
authority whatever, except that which the Constitution confers. 
A minority of the people might wish or desire to give to Con- 
gress other powers so long as their party has a majority in that 
body, or to give the President more power if he is one of their 
party, but the Constitution made by our fathers does not allow 
such usurpation. A minority of the people might wish to give 
Congress power to establish a National Church if they thought 
Congress would prefer the Presbyterian Church ; but if they sup- 
posed Congress would prefer the Methodist Church, then they 
would not favor t the idea. Again, a minority might wish to give 
Congress that power if they supposed Congress would favor the 
Episcopalian Church, but not otherwise. The Constitution made 
by our fathers wisely says : " Congress shall make no law con- 
cerning religion." A minority of the people have given Con- 
gress power to confer upon the negroes privileges equal with the 
white race. It is not the act of the majority, and fearing that if 
left to an election it might fail, the radicals cunningly managed to 
go through certain forms without any vote of the people. The 
majority of the people will condemn the act. 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 107 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA. 

When our fathers formed the Union under the Constitution in 
1787, they took great pains to inform themselves in relation to 
the history of former Republics, in order that in this Government 
the errors of Ancient Republics might be avoided. They searched 
the histories of the Greek, Roman, Italian, and Swiss Republics 
with _the design of imitating the best, and avoiding the worse 
traits of all those models. They traced with particular care the 
rise, progress, and final overthrow of the Grecian and Roman 
Democracies. They saw and understood the truth that the Greeks, 
after maintaining a Republican Government for several hundred 
years, at last became divided by sectional jealousies, and fought 
among themselves for mastery over each other, until, finally, they 
were compelled to surrender their claim of popular liberty and 
submit to a monarchy ; and in the end, their children were con- 
quered by foreign armies, and remained for long ages the slaves 
of other nations. 

Our fathers hoped that their children might be sufficiently in- 
telligent to keep ever in view and ever on their guard against the 
influences of violent party spirit, and above all, against the influ- 
ence of sectional jealousy, hatred, and bigotry. They hoped that 
the superior excellence of the American Constitution and form 
of Government would, at all times, be so manifest to their poster- 
ity, that none of the American people could at any time be so 
dissatisfied with it as to desire any great changes in its principles. 
But the_history of the past fifty years has proven that the hopes 



108 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

of our fathers were utterly fallacious. Notwithstanding the pros- 
perit}' and happiness which we have experienced, we have contin- 
ually been beset by demagogues who found fault with our Gov- 
ernment, and by people who insisted on changing or amending 
something which did not precisely agree with their prejudices. 
The two States that have been most active and noisy in endeav- 
oring to change or destroy our excellent Government are Massa- 
chusetts and South Carolina. Since 1832 up to 1865, South 
Carolina has been, in some degree, disaffected. In the year 1832, 
the Legislature of South Carolina attempted to nullify a law of 
Congress concerning the tariff of duties on imported goods. The 
objection, or reason which they gave for nullification was, that the 
tariff was made for the benefit of Eastern manufacturers, and in- 
tended to prevent the agricultural States from purchasing foreign 
goods, thus operating to enrich the manufacturers at the expense 
of the agriculturalists. Gen. Jackson, although himself a South- 
ern man, a planter, and a Democrat, insisted that South Carolina 
should obey the laws of the Union. And all the other States up- 
held and supported him in his decision. The people of South 
Carolina, in view of the fact that they must certainly be overpow- 
ered by the military force of the Government, relinquished nulli- 
fication and submitted to the law. But from that time forth her 
politicians never loved the Union. They labored to produce and 
excite prejudices against the North, and especially against New 
England, and to prepare the Southern people for separation from 
the Union. ' They undoubtedly rejoiced at the insults and injuries 
heaped upon the Southern people by Northern Abolitionists, be- 
cause they saw that the final result would be w r ar between the 
sections unless a peaceable separation occurred. Thus South Car- 
lina and Massachusetts, from 1832 to 1860, were working together 
for the same cause and for the same purpose of dissolution. 

Previous to 1832, South Carolina never manifested the section- 
al spirit. She always exhibited the Union feeling and spirit. In 
1788 she gave almost a unanimous vote for the Constitution and 
the Union, while Massachusetts was almost equally divided, cast- 
ing nearly as many votes against the Constitution as she did for 
it. If the reader doubts the truth of this assertion, he can easily 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 109 

satisfy Ins doubts by a peep at history. If other histories are not 
at hand, or if silent, let him procure Judge Story's work on the 
Constitution, which will remove all doubts. 

South Carolina entered boldly into the Revolution of 1775. 
Her Marion, Sumter, and Moultrie, with many others, fought 
most gallantly for liberty, and her patriotic Governor Hayne 
died in an English prison, a martyr to the American cause. It is 
true, that there were Tories in South Carolina during the war of 
Independence. And so there were in New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,- and nearly all the States. When the British were 
driven out of Boston by Washington's force in 1775, no less than 
1,500 families of New England Tories left Boston with Gen. 
Gage. Perhaps my reader may doubt this assertion, bift the his- 
tory of the Revolution will prove it. And it will also prove that 
when the Massachusetts Legislature, in 1774, were considering 
whether they should attempt to resist British aggression, they 
were so much frightened that the members would have dispersed 
without voting on the question if Samuel Adams and Warren, 
who afterwards fell at Bunker Hill, had not locked the doors, se- 
creted the keys, and thus for the time prevented the members 
from escaping. No doubt their fears of the gallows were very 
powerful, and if they had not been greatly sustained and assisted 
by the other Colonies, their patriotism would have been easily re- 
pressed. 

The Independence of the American people was acknowledged 
by Great Britain in 1783. The first armed rebellion within our 
Union after that period, occurred in Massachusetts in 1780, and 
was called " Shay's Rebellion." The second rebellion occurred in 
Pennsylvania in 1794, and was called the "Whisky Insurrection." 
Then again Massachusetts threatened to rebel in 1814, and often 
from that time up to 1800, used rebellious language against the 
government of the Union. From all these circumstances it ap- 
pears evident that the hatred expressed by Massachusetts writers 
and speakers against South Carolina, is not caused by an holy ha- 
tred or horror of rebellion itself, but by some other principle that 
lies deep within the hearts of Massachusetts people. It is high 
time that the people of the other States should use such means as 



110 Washington's prophecy, or 

■will effectually discourage the exhibition of such horribly malig- 
nant sectional hatred by one section of the Union towards the oth- 
er. South Carolina has now been humbled in the dust. She has 
accepted the result of the war with all its consequences. Her 
people no longer profess any hostility against the Union, or any 
of its people. The past history and present attitude of Massa- 
chusetts compels us to believe that her people are incorrigibly 
bigoted, intolerant, and persecuting in their disposition towards 
all who differ from them in religion, politics, and morals, and that 
those who at at any time agree with them, must change their opin- 
ion and conduct when they change, or else make up their minds 
to suffer all the abuse and denunciation that can be invented by 
bigotry iffielf. 

The Hon. Daniel Webster once said in a public address to the 
people of Boston: "You have conquered an ungenial clime, you 
have conquered a sterile soil, you have conquered the winds and 
elements of the ocean, you have conquered most of the elements 
of nature, but you must learn to conquer your unreasonable prej- 
udices." 

It is a most singular fact, that while the Massachusetts people 
have continually and universally condemned and denounced John 
C. Calhoun for plotting the overthrow of the. Union, they have 
upheld and glorified Garrison, Phillips, and John Brown, in doing 
precisely the same thing. It is perfectly impossible for a candid 
mind to discover any difference in guilt betwixt the South Caro- 
lina traitor and the Massachusetts traitor. 

On the 14th of March, 18G2, after the bloody battles of Bull 
Run, Belmont, and Ball's Bluff had proved that the restoration of 
the Union was very doubtful, Mr. Wendell Phillips delivered an 
address in Washington City in which he said : " I have labored 
nineteen years to take nineteen States out of the Union, and if I 
have spent any nineteen years to the satisfaction of my Puritan 
conscience, it was those nineteen years. The child of six gener- 
ations of Puritans, I was taught at a mother's knee to love purity 
before peace. And when Daniel Webster taught me that the 
Union meant making white men hypocrites and black men slaves; 
that it meant Lynch law in the Carolinas and mob law in Massa- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. Ill 

chusetts; that it meant lies in the pulpit, and gags in the Senate; 
when I was told that the cementing of the Union was returning 
slaves to their masters, in the name of the God I loved and had 
been taught to honor, I cursed the Constitution and the Union, 
and endeavored to break it; and thank God it is broken." 

What a straight forward, honest, upright, sincere Puritan Mr. 
Phillips is ! How faithful to the God he loves and how truthful 
in representing the views of Daniel Webster! He might with 
equal sincerity represent that Daniel Webster taught him to be- 
lieve that the Union meant the propagation of the Roman Cath- 
olic religion, or the Methodist, or Presbyterian, or any other sys- 
tem of religion. He might with equal sincerity represent Mr. 
Webster as teaching him that the Union meant murder, robbery, 
arson, rape, theft, and blasphemy because the Constitution did 
not allow Congress to pass laws against those crimes. His asser- 
tion concerning Mr. Webster would have been as truthful* honest 
and sincere in this case as it was in relation to slavery. The 
State of Massachusetts at this very day honors Wendell Phillips, 
Garrison, and John Brown more than she honors Daniel Webster 
or Rufus Choate. She this day honors every man who breathes 
forth curses and anathemas against the people of the South, more 
than she honors any man who prays for the restoration of "univer- 
sal peace, friendship and good will. 

As a further illustration of the spirit which pervades her people 
in general, we will introduce a remark of Senator Wade,of Ohio,who 
although a Senator in Congress from Ohio, yet represents Massa- 
chusetts better than he does his own State, just as Senators Chan- 
dler, Trumbull, and others represent Massachusetts better than 
they do their own States. On the 13th of February, 1866, in the 
course of a debate on the re-admission of Southern Senators and 
Representatives, Senator Henderson asked Senator Wade if South 
Carolina had not a Republican Government when the Union was 
first formed. Senator Wade replied, " No, she had not." " Then 
our fathers must have lied," said Senator Henderson. To which 
Senator Wade replied, " Our fathers were mistaken, that is all." 

This little colloquy been two Senators on the floor of Congress 
furnishes the mind with a grave subject of reflection. 



112 Washington's prophecy, or 

The radicals say than when the Union was formed, Washing- 
ton, Franklin, Jefferson, Hancock, the Adamses, and all our fath- 
ers were mistaken in supposing that South Carolina had a He- 
publican government. And why ? Because she tolerated slavery. 
Of course, then, neither New York, Pennsylvania, nor any other 
State, had a real Republican Government, not even Massachusetts ; 
for, although she had freed her slaves, yet she did not allow ne- 
groes to vote or hold office. By the same rule there is no State 
yet which has a real Republican government, for not one of them 
allows universal suffrage. Even Massachusetts allows none to 
vote except men who can read, and rejects all the women whether 
they can read or not. Yes, all our fathers were mistaken, says 
the radical. They set up a government and called it a Republic, 
and their children have lived under it upwards of eighty years, 
enjoying the best government that the sun ever shone upon, and 
now radical Senators and Representatives in Congress stand up 
in those Halls and gravely tell us that our fathers were mistaken; 
that the governments which they recognized as Republican were 
not Republican; that Washington and Franklin did not know 
what a Republic ^as, but Mr. Wade does. 

How beautifully honest, sincere, and consistent is the record of 
these radicals ! Ten years ago, when they in 1856 nominated 
Col. Fremont for the Presidency, they assured us that their grand 
object was to bring the government back to the principles of our 
fathers. In 1861 and 1862 they filled the air with denunciations 
against those who had rebelled against the best government in the 
world, and now they solemnly assure us that this government, 
made by our fathers, was not republican ; that it was not the best 
government in the world, and that our fathers were entirely mis- 
taken. But this is not all. During the past ten years they have 
constantly endeavored to lead the multitude to believe that the 
Democratic party, which had successfully administered the gov- 
ernment for nearly fifty years, had never conducted it in accord- 
ance with the principles of its founders, but bad forsaken those 
principles, and adopted a course unknown to our fathers, chang- 
ing the policy of the government from its original design. But 
the assertion to-day that our fathers were mistaken when they 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 113 

framed the Union and did not understand the nature of a repub- 
lican government so well as B. F. Wade and Charles Sumner do, 
is a clear admission that the Democratic party has always admin- 
istered the government in accordance with the principles of its 
fathers and founders, and that the radicals, in pretending to be so 
anxious for returning to the principles of the fathers, were acting 
hypocritically and with the most dishonest motives. Their aim has 
been, and still is to destroy the government made by our fathers, 
to amend, change, and alter the Constitution which has so long 
protected us, and to continue the work of destruction regardless 
of all the untold and incalculable evils and miseries which must 
ensue from an unstable, unsteady, and unreliable system of gov- 
ment. 



114 Washington's prophecy, or 



CHAPTER XV. 

AMERICAN REBELS OF 1861. 

Taking Christianity as the great standard of human action, re- 
sistance or rebellion against any existing government is never 
justifiable under any circumstances. "Let every soul be obedi- 
ent to the higher power, to the king as supreme, and to the gov- 
ernors sent by him," is the unqualified command of Paul, the 
most able of all the expounders of Christian duty. But this com- 
mand has not been generally observed by Christian nations. The 
motto of very many Christians has been, "Resistance to tyrants 
is obedience to God." And in no other country has this senti- 
ment been so generally approved as in ours. 

William Tell led the Swiss in their rebellion against the Aus- 
trian government, threw off the Austrian yoke, and laid the foun- 
dations of the Swiss Republic. ^No American has ever read the 
story of Tell's exploits and victories without a feeling of admira- 
tion, sympathy, and approbation. An American takes the Swiss 
side of the story, and never troubles himself to inquire whether 
the Austrian side can justify itself; or, in other words, whether 
the Swiss rebels hac\ a good and sufficient cause for rebellion, but 
gives his verdict instantly on the Swiss side. The feeling of his 
heart is precisely this : if the Swiss people did not wish to be 
governed by the Austrians they were justified in rebelling against 
the government. That is precisely the American idea as held out 
in the Declaration of Independence. 

When the Polanders, in 1831, rebelled against the Russian gov- 
ernment, every American heart beat in unit on with the coun- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 115 

countrymen of Kosciusko and Polaski. And when the brave and 
patriotic Poles were overpowered, when their dead bodies covered 
the battle-fields, when the rebellion was crushed, and the iron 
hand of Russian despotism once more resumed its sway over War- 
saw, no American, young or old, who had ever read of the aid 
given by Polanders to our own country in her struggle for liber- 
ty, could avoid wishing that the brave and gallant Poles had suc- 
ceeded in their efforts. 

So when Mexico, Peru, and Chili rebelled against the Spanish 
government from 1820 to 1825, the whole American people sym- 
pathized with them in their stpiggle, and many Americans gave 
them material aid. They did not stop to inquire whether the 
Spanish government was very oppressive, or whether those South 
American rebels had any special causes for complaint against 
Spain. All that they knew on the subject was that the Mexicans 
and South Americans were fighting for independence, and that the 
King of Spain had attempted to put down the rebellion by force. 
Yet we could not deny that in our own struggle of 1776 against 
Great Britain, Spain had been one of the first powers that recog- 
nized our government, and had given us considerable aid in that 
revolution. 

When the Greeks rebelled against the Turkish government, and 
when Turkey used her whole power to crush the rebels, was there 
one American who wished that Turkey might succeed in putting 
down those rebels? Not one. Was there one American who 
even listened to the Turkish side of the story, in order to ascer- 
tain whether they accused the Greeks of unprovoked rebellion ? 
Not one. Every American, whether male or female, old or young, 
who heard of the struggle, sympathized with the Greeks. 

Then when the Hungarians rebelled against Austria, in 1848, 
and when Austria, by the assistance of Russian bayonets, over- 
powered and crushed the Hungarians ; when Kossuth, the rebel 
leader, was compelled to fly his country, what American voice re- 
fused to welcome Kossuth? Here, on American soil, he was wel- 
! and cheered from one end of the country to the other. Did 
any American care whether Austria had violated the rights of the 
Hungarian people or not? Not one. It was enough for us that 



116 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

the Hungarians desired to throw off the Austrian yoke, and to be 
an independent nation. We did not care whether ambitious dem- 
agogues had led them into rebellion, or whether it was a sponta- 
neous uprising of the people. To us it was all the same. We 
honor "William Tell because he was a rebel. So also we honor 
Marco Bozzaris, Simon Bolivar, and Louis Kossuth. 

Does any American feel that Robert Emmet, the Irish rebel of 
■ 98, was any the less a gentleman and a Christian, merely because 
he was a rebel? Not at all. Does any American feel that Wash- 
ington, Greene, Morgan, Putnam, Warren, Lee, Marion, Sumter, 
and Lincoln, of our own glorious Revolution, were any less than 
great and good men, merely because they were rebels against the 
government of Great Britain, their lawful sovereign and king? 
No. We honor them because they were rebels. We honor them 
although we know that the government under which they lived 
declared them traitors and rebels in arms against a good govern- 
ment. It is true, we have been educated to believe that they had 
good cause for rebellion. And it is also true that the British gov- 
ernment and people denied the whole story, and declared that the 
rebellion was gotten up and the people led into it by ambitious 
politicians, who desired to raise themselves to power. Of course 
William Pitt and a few others, the copperheads of those days, 
sympathized with the American rebels, but the mass of the nation 
supported the government. 

Our Declaration of Independence says when a government be- 
comes destructive of the rights of the people, then it becomes the 
duty of the people to alter or abolish it. Now, as the govern- 
ment will always insist that it has not become destructive of those 
rights, who shall judge as to when rebellion is justifiable, and 
when it is not? Of course the Declaration means that the peo- 
ple themselves must be the judges. And when that Declaration 
was signed in 1776, there were multitudes of people in the colo- 
nies who honestly, sincerely, and conscientiously believed that 
the rebellion was wrong, unprovoked, and unjustifiable. Perhaps 
no people on earth were more sincere and honest in their opinions 
than were the Tory Quakers of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 
But there were other Tories in all the colonies, many of them 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 117 

good, pious, and religious men, who steadfastly adhered to the 
. and remained loyal, who were also, in many cases, persecu- 
te^ imprisoned, and their property confiscated by their country- 
men, because they would not join the rebels. And when the Con- 
gress at Philadelphia issued the Declaration of Independence^ 
which was precisely the same as an ordinance of secession, did 
they submit it to the vote of the people in order that the people 
might for themselves decide whether they would claim indepen- 
dence or not? No, indeed. The Congress assumed all the power 
and responsibility of declaring the bonds of union with Great 
Britain dissolved. 

Taking into view all these undeniable Lets, as the American 
people usually did until 1861, the name "rebel" never was by 
them considered by any means disgraceful or dishonorable. Amer- 
icans rather felt disposed to honor and admire those who acquired 
the name of "rebel." The word "traitor" was applied to Bene- 
dict Arnold by us, because he saw fit to quit the rebels and return 
to his allegiance to his king and government. It was also ap- 
plied as an offensive epithet to Aaron Burr, and to Calhoun, be- 
sides being frequently used in political tirades against those who 
changed their politics and joined the opposite party. 

Well, we have now in our country several millions of people 
who have been rebels against our government. They have been 
conquered after a long series of bloody battles, most of them re- 
turning to their homes and peaceable employments. The very 
same leaders of the very same party that ten years ago threaten- 
ed to rebel against the government and secede from the Union, 
now insist that all rebels ought to be disfranchised forever. A 
part of them still go farther and insist that all the higher officers 
should be executed on the gallows. Confiscation of all the prop- 
erty of every rebel is also advocated by some of the extreme rad- 
icals. 

It is very observable that those Northern men, who, from 1840 
to 1860, were the most violent and bold in their threats of seces- 
sion and rebellion, are now in favor of the most severe measures 
against Southern rebels. This may be accounted lor in a manner 
similar to that of the reformed rake, who, on becoming a deacon 



118 WASHINGTON'S PROPHECY, OR 

of the church, was found to be always in favor of the strictest 
measures and most severe punishments against fornication and 
adultery. It would seem evident that in view of the fact that in 
former years, all the American people, from 1783 up to 18G0, did 
encourage rebellion and revolution amongst the people of other 
countries, and did always honor those who boldly attempted revo- 
lution; and in view of the fact that so many of the leading radi- 
cals have in previous years set the example of writing and speak- 
in<* against the Union, and thus rendering the idea of secession 
and rebellien less horrible and less criminal than it otherwise 
would have appeared, therefore, the sentiment of the whole nation 
should be opposed to the whole plan of proscription, confiscation, 
and disfranchisement. 

The individual who first attempts to render the minds of others 
familiar with the idea of murder and treason ; who uses language 
justifying these crimes, and implying that he himself is intending 
on certain conditions to commit them, and thus makes them ap- 
pear no crimes, so that others are led or influenced to commit 
them is certainly very little better than the persons who actually 
do commit them, and if he afterwards commences calling for ven- 
geance without mercy upon those who have thus been led into 
crime he deserves to be reminded that his own former course and 
his hypocrisy would be sooner forgotten and forgiven if he should 
remain silent on the question of treason. 

In addition to the already lengthy list of this class of persons, 
we place the name of William Dennison, of Ohio. When nomi- 
nated by the Republican party as its candidate for Governor in 
1859, he made a speech from which we extract the following par- 
agraph: "If I am elected Governor of Ohio (and I expect to be 
I will not permit another fugitive slave to be carrried out of the 
State, even if it shall be necessary to employ themilitaiy to pre- 
vent it, so help me God." 

Mr. Dennison was elected by a large majority. In 1861 he 
and the men who voted for him, pretended to be completely 
shocked and horrified at tli" wiekeducss of the Southern people, 
v,-]io, | filing accustomed to hear nullification, secession, and ve- 
in spoken of by Republicans as perfectly light and just, ac- 



FACTS CONCERNING THE REBELLION. 119 

tually did rebel. Such men deserve to be reminded of their own 
faults every day in the week, so long as they continue to urge 
the proscription, confiscation, and disfranchisement of rebels 

The reader should not infer from any of these remarks that the 
author of this work approves or justifies the late rebellion. The 
acts and words of all these Northern fanatics did not fully justify 
it. Nothing short of an actual attempt by Mr. Lincoln or a rad- 
ical Congress to deprive the Southern people of their Constitu- 
tional rights, would have justified an appeal to arms. When Mr. 
Lincoln was elected his party could not command a majority in 
either House of Congress. The Southern Senators and Repre- 
sentatives, by retaining their seats, might lave compelled him to 
choose for his Cabinet the most conservative men of his party, or 
else to choose Democrats. Air. Lincoln could have done nothing 
without a majority in Congress. A reaction in public sentiment 
might have forever prevented the radicals from interfering with 
Southern rights. And if the radicals had finally succeeded in 
gaining a majority in both Houses of Congress, and then attempt- 
ed to trample on Southern rights, there would have been such a 
justification as would have drawn large numbers of Northern and 
Western men into the Southern ranks. 

Most undoubtedly it would have been far better for the nation 
if the Southern people had listened to the advice of such men as 
John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, 
Bailie Payton of Mississippi, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, 
and Samuel Houston of Texas, instead of following such men as 
William L. Yancey and Barnwell Rhett. 

Again, it is hoped that no reader will infer that the author 
seeks to cast discredit upon those men who risked their lives and 
limbs in fighting for the Union. When the regularly constituted 
authorities of the nation call upon its citizens to fight for their 
government, it certainly must be right for those citizens to obey 
the call. There may be different opinions as to whether the Ad- 
ministration has done all its duty in order to avoid war, and dif- 
ferent opinions as to whether our government is altogether justified 
in its course towards the public enemy, and those opinions ought 
to be freely expressed. 



120 Washington's prophecy, or 

But it cannot be expected tliat the great mass of the people, 
merchants, mechanics, farmers, laborers, physicians, and clergy- 
men, are at all times so well posted that they are fully prepared 
to decide questions concerning the most intricate affairs of the 
government. Although it i3 perfectly proper and right that the 
people should be thus posted, yet we know that so generally are 
the great mass engaged in the struggle for bread or for property, 
that but few of them can be qualified to decide a dispute between 
their own government and any other power. Therefore, when 
our government is involved in a war, whether in a just cause or 
not, it will always be found that the majority of the people will 
sustain the government so long as the war lasts. Under the Con- 
stitution Mr. Lincoln could not avoid calling out the militia to 
enforce the laws of the Union. The war followed as a conse- 
quence, inevitable under the circumstances, and the men who took 
up arms to sustain the government, only fulfilled their obligations 
to that government. 

The writer of this work will here remark that in its publica- 
tion he has two objects in view : 

First. For his own gratification he desires to see these "Facts" 
placed upon paper within as small a compass as possible. 

Second. He desires to contribute his mite towards giving an im- 
mortality of infamy to those persons who have by falsehood, hy- 
pocrisy, and misrepresentation, produced a war in which life-long 
friends, and even sons of the same parents have imbrued their 
hands in each other's blood, each one believing himself to be right. 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 121 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION MADE IN 1778. 
(A True Copy.) 
Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, between the 
States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and 
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, and Georgia. 

ARTICLE I. 

The style of this Confederacy shall be, " The United States of 

America/' 

ARTICLE II. 

Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, 
and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this 
Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Con- 
gress assembled. 

ARTICLE III. 

The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of 
friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security 
of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare; binding 
themselves to assist each other against all force offered to, or at- 
tacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, 
sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever. 

ARTICLE IV. 

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and in- 
tercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, 



122 ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 

the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, 
or fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privi- 
leges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and 
the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and 
from any other State; and shall enjoy therein all the privileges 
of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, 
and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively; provided, 
that such restriction shall not extend so far as to prevent the re- 
moval of property imported into any State, to any other State of 
"which the owner is an inhabitant; provided, also, that no imposi- 
tion, duties, or restrictions shall be laid by any State on the 
property of the United States, or either of them. 

If any person guilty of, or charged with treason, felony, or 
other high misdemeanor in any State, shall flee from justice, and 
be found in any of the United States, he shall, on demand of the 
Governor or Executive power of the State from which he fled, be 
delivered up, and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his 
offense. 

Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to 
the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and mag- 
istrates of every other State. 

ARTICLE V. 

For the more convenient management of the general interests 
of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such 
manner as the Legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in 
Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with 
a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of 
them, at any time within the year, and send others in their stead, 
for the remainder of the year. 

No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, 
nor by more than seven members, and no person shall be capable 
of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six 
years, nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of- hold- 
ing office under the United States, for which he, or another for 
his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or emoluments of any kind. 

Each State shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 123 

States, and while they act as members of the committee of the 
States. 

In determining questions in the United States in Congress as- 
sembled, each State shall have one vote. 

Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be im- 
peached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress, and 
the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from 
arrests and imprisonment, during the time of their going to and 
from and attendance on Congress, except for treason, felony, or 

breach of the peace. 

ARTICLE V. 

No State, without the consent of the United States in Congress 
assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy 
from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty 
with any king, prince, or state; nor shall any person, holding any 
office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, 
accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind 
whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state ; nor shall the 
United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any 
title of nobility. 

No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confedera- 
tion, or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of 
the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately 
the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how 
long it shall continue. 

No State shall lay any imposts or duties which may interfere 
with any stipulations or treaties entered into by the United States 
in Congress assembled, with any king, prince, or state, in pursu- 
ance of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the courts 
of France and Spain. 

No vessels of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any 
State, except such number only as shall be deemed necessary by 
the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such 
State or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any 
State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judg- 
ment of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed 
requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of ^uch 



124 ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 

State; but every State shall keep a well-regulated and disciplined 
militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred, and shall provide and 
constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of 
field-pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition, 
and camp equipage. 

No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the 
United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actu- 
ally invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of 
a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade 
such State, and the danger is so- imminent as not to admit of a 
delay till the United States in Congress assembled can be con- 
sulted; nor shall any State grant commissions to any ship or ves- 
sel of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a 
declaration of war by the United States in Congress assembled, 
and then only against the kingdom or state, and the subjects there- 
of against whom war has been so declared, and under such regulations 
tis shall be established by the United States in Congress assem- 
bled unless such State be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of 
war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so long as the 
danger shall continue, or until the United States in Congress as- 
sembled, shall determine otherwise. 

ARTICLE VII. 

When land forces are raised by any State for the common de- 
fense, all officers of or under the rank of Colonel, shall be appoin- 
ted by the Legislature of each State respectively, by whom such 
forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall di- 
rect, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first 
made the appointment. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incur- 
red for the common defense, or general welfare, and allowed by 
the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out 
of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several 
States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, 
granted to, or surveyed for, any person, as such land and the 
buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated, according 
to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled shall, 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 125 

from time to time, direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that 
proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction 
of the Legislatures of the several States within the time agreed 
upon by the United States in Congress assembled. 

ARTICLE IX. 

The United States in Congress assembled, shall have the sole 
and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, 
except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article: Of sending 
and receiving embassadors: Entering into treaties and alliances; 
provided that no treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the 
lative power of the respective States shall be restrained from 
imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners as their own peo- 
ple are subjected to, or from prohibiting the exportation or im- 
portation of any species of goods or commodities whatever: Of 
establishing rules for deciding in all cases what captures on land 
or water shall be legal, and in what manner prizes, taken by land 
or naval forces, in the service of the United States, shall be divi- 
ded or appropriated: Of granting letters of marque and reprisal 
in time of peace: Appointing courts for the trial of piracies and 
felonies, committed on the high seas, and establishing courts for 
receiving and determining, finally, appeals in all casesof captures ; 
provided, that no member of Congress shall be appointed a judge 
of any of said courts. 

The Linked States in Congress assembled shall also be the last 
resort, on appeal, in all disputes and differences now subsisting, 
or that hereafter may arise, between two or more States concern- 
ing boundary, jurisdiction, or any other cause whatever, which 
authority shall always be exercised in the following manner: 
■;cver the legislative or executive authority, or lawful agent 
of any State in controversy with another, shall present a petition 
to Congress, stating the matter in question, and praying for a 
hearing, notice thereof shall be given, by order of Congress, to 
the legislative or executive authority of the other State in contro- 
versy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by 
their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint, by joint 
consent, commissioners or judges, to constitute a court for hear- 
ing and determining the matter in question; but if they cannot 



120 ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION 

agree, Congress shall name three persons out of each of the United 
States, and from the list of such persons, each party shall alternately 
strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall 
be reduced to thirteen, and from that number not less than seven, 
nor more than nine names, as Congress shall direct, shall, in the 
presence of Congress, be drawn out by lot, and the persons whose 
names shall be so drawn, or any five of them, shall be commis- 
sioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, 
so always as a major part of the judges who shall hear the cause 
shall agree in the determination. And if either party shall neg- 
lect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons which 
Congress shall judge sufficient, or being present shall refuse to 
strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out 
of each State, and the Secretary of Congress shall strike in be- 
half of such party absent or refusing, and the judgment and sen- 
tence of the court, to be appointed in the manner before pre- 
scribed, shall be final and conclusive. And if any of the parties 
shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear 
or defend their claim or cause, the court shall, nevertheless, pro- 
ceed to pronounce judgment, which shall in like manner be final 
and decisive, the judgment, or sentence, and proceedings being 
in either case transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts 
of Congress, for the security of the parties concerned: Provided, 
that every commissioner, before he sits in judgment, shall take 
oath, to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme or 
superior court of the State, where the cause shall be tried, 'well 
and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according 
to the best of his judgment, without favor, affection, or hope of 
reward:' Provided, also, that no State shall be deprived of terri- 
tory for the benefit of the United States. 

All controversies concerning the private rights of soil claimed 
under different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions 
as they may respect such lands and the States which passed such- 
grant?., are adjusted, the said grants, or either of them, being at 
the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such set- 
tlement of jurisdiction, shall, on the petition of either party to 
the Congress of the United States, be finally determined, as near 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 127 

as may be, in the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding 
disputes respesting territorial jurisdiction between different States. 

The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the 
sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and 
value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the re- 
spective States: Fixing the standard of weights and measures 
throughout the United States: Regulating the trade and managing 
all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States ; 
provided, that the legislative right of any State within its own 
limits be not infringed or violated: Establishing and regulating 
post-offices from one State to another, throughout all the United 
States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the 
same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said of- 
fice : Appointing all officers of the land forces in the service of 
the United States, excepting regimental officers: Appointing all 
the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers 
whatever in the service of the United States: Making rules for 
the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, and 
directing their operations. 

The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority 
to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be 
denominated A Comittee of the States, and to consist of one del- 
egate from each State; and to appoint such other committees and 
civil officers as may be necessary for the managing the general 
affairs of the United States under their direction: To appoint one 
of their number to preside; provided, that no person be allowed 
to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term 
of three year. To ascertain the necessary sums of money to be 
raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate 
and apply the same for defraying the public expenses: To bor- 
row money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, 
transmitting every half year to the respective States an account 
of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted: To build and equip 
a navy : To agree upon the number of land forces, and to make 
requisitions upon each State for its quota, in proportion to the 
number of white inhabitants in such State, which requisition shall 
be binding, and thereupon the legislature of each State shall ap- 



128 ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 

point the regimental officers, raise the men and clothe, arm, and 
equip them in a soldier-like manner, at the expense of the United 
States ; and the officers and men so clothed, armed, and equipped, 
shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on 
by the United States in Congress assembled: but if the United 
States in Congress assembled shall, on consideration of circum- 
stances, judge proper that any State should not raise men, or 
should raise a smaller number than its quota, and that any other 
State should raise a greater number of men than its quota there- 
of, such extra number shall be raised, officered, clothed, armed, 
and equipped in the same manner as the quota of such State, un- 
less the legislature of such State shall judge that such extra 
number cannot be safely spared out of the same, in which case 
they shall raise, officer, clothe, arm, and equip as many of such 
extra number rs they judge can be safely spared: and the officers 
and men so clothed, armed, and equipped shall march to the place 
appointed and within the time agreed on by the United States in 
Congress assembled. 

The United States in Congress assembled shall never engage 
in a war, nor grant letters of marque and reprisal in time of 
peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, 
nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expen- 
ses necessary for the defense and welfare of the United States, or 
any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of 
the United States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the 
number of vessels of war to be built or purchased, or the number 
of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a Commander-in- 
Chief of the army or navy, unless nine States assent to the same, 
nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning 
from day to day, be determined, unless by the votes of a majority 
of the United States in Congress assembled. 

The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn 
to any time within the year, and to any place within the United 
States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration 
than the space of six months, and shall publish the journal of 
their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof relating to 
treaties, alliances, or military operations, as in their judgment re- 



ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. - 129 

qfaire secrecy, and the yens and nays of the delegates of each 
State on any question, shall be entered on the journal when it is 
desired by any delegate, and the delegates of a State, or any of 
them, at his or their request, shall be furnished with a transcript 
of the said journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to 
lay before the legislatures of the several States. 

ARTICLE X. 

The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be au- 
thorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers 
of Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the 
consent of nine States, shall, from time to time, think expedient 
to vest them with; provided, that no power be delegated to the 
said Committee, for the exercise of which, by the articles of Con- 
federation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the Uni- , 
ted States assembled is requisite. 

ARTICLE XI. 

Canada, acceding to this Confederation, and joining in the 
measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and enti- 
tled to all the advantages of, this L T nion. But no other colony 
shall be admitted into the same unless such admission be agreed 

to by nine States. 

ARTICLE XII. 

All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts con- 
tracted, by or under the authority of Congress, before the as- 
sembling of the L T nited States, in pursuance of the present Con- 
federation,, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against 
the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof, the said 
United States, and the public faith, are hereby solemnly pledged. 
ARTICLE XIII. 

Every State shall abide by the determinations of the United 
States in Congress assembled, on all questions which, by this Con- 
federation, are submitted to them. And the articles of this Con- 
federation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the 
Union shall be perpetual. Nor shall any alteration at any time 
hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed 
to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards con- 
firmed by the legislatures of every State. 



130 ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 

And whereas, it has pleased the great Governor of the World to 
incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in 
Congress to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said 
Articles of Confederation and' Perpetual Union : 

Know Ye, That we, the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the 
power and authority to us given for that purpose, do, by these 
presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constitu- 
ents, fully ratify and confirm each and every of said Articles of 
Confederation and Perpetual Union, and all and singular the mat- 
ters and things therein contained. And we do further solemnly 
plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that 
they shall abide by the determinations of the United States in 
Congress assembled, on all questions which, by the said Confed- 
eration, are submitted to them, and that the articles thereof shall 
be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, 
and that the Union shall be perpetual. 

In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. 
Done at Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, the ninth day 
of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hun- 
dred and seventy-eight, and in the third year of the Inde- 
pendence of America. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 131 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE CONSTITUTION MADE BY OUR FATHERS. 
A True Copy. 
We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, pro- 
vide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do 
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of 
America. 

ARTICLE I. 

SECTION 1. 

1. All Legislative powers herein granted, shall be vested in a 
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

SECTION 2. 

1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of mem- 
bers chosen every second year by the people of the several States, 
and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requi- 
site for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legis- 
lature. 

2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have at- 
tained to the age of twenty- five years, and been seven yenrs a 
citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be 
an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. 

>. R 'preventatives and direct taxes shall be &pp0»tiojaed 

: g the several States wlii'-ii may be included withi :n'ou, 

acceding to their respective numbers, tfhich shall le determined 



132 CONSTITUTION OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 

by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those 
bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not 
taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration 
shall be made within thi . after the first, meeting of the 

Congress of the United Spates, and within every subsequent term 
of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The 
number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty 
thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; 
and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New 
Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts-eight, 
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, 
New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware 
one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Car- 
olina five, and Georgia three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, 
the Executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill 
such vacancies. 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker 
and other officers ; and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

SECTION 3. 

1. The Senate of the United States 'shall be composed of two 
Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for 
six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. 

2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence 
of the first election, they shall be divided, as equally as may be, 
into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class 
shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year ; of the sec- 
ond class, at the expiration of the fourth year; and of the third 
class, at the expiration of the sixth year ; so that one third may 
be chosen every second year ; and if vacancies happen by resigna- 
tion, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any 
State, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments 
until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such 
vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to 
the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the 
United States, and who shall not, when elected be an inhabitant of 
that State for which he shall be chosen. 



CONSTITUTION OP THE UNITED STATES. 133 

4. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President 
of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divi- 
ded. 

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a Presi- 
dent pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he 
shall exercise the office of President of the United States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeach- 
ments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or 
affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the 
Chief Justice shall preside; and no person shall be convicted with- 
out the concurrence of two thirds of the members present. 

7. Judgment in case3 of impeachment shall not extend further 
than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy 
any office of honor, trust, or profit, under the United States ; but 
the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to 
indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law. 

section 4. 

1. The times, places, and manner, of holding elections for 
Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State 
by the legislature thereof: but the Congress may at any time, by 
law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of 
choosing Senators. 

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every vear, 
and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, un- 
less they shall by law appoint a different day. 

section 5. 

1. Each House shall be judge of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications, of its own members, and a majority of each shall 
constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may 
adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the at- 
tendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such pen- 
alties, as each House may provide. 

2. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, 
punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concur- 
rence of two thirds, expel a member. 

3. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and, 
from time to time, publish the same, excepting such parts as may, 

—9 



134 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

4 

in their judgment, require secrecy ; and the yeas and nays of the 
members of either House, on any question, shall, at the desire of 
one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. 

4. Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, with- 
out the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, 
nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be 
sitting. 

SECTION 6. 

1. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensa- 
tion for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of 
the treasury of the United States. They shall, in all cases, except 
treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest 
during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, 
and in going to, and returning from, the same ; and for any speech 
or debate jn either House, they shall not be questioned in any 
other place. 

2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for 
which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the 
authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or 
the emoluments whereof shall have been increased, during such 
time; and no person, holding any office under the United States, 
shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. 

section 7. 

1. All Bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with 
amendments, as on other bills. 

2. Every bill, which shall have passed the House of Represen- 
tatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented 
to the President of the United States ; if he approve, he shall 
sign it, but if not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that 
House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the ob- 
jections at large on the journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, 
after such reconsideration, two thirds of that House shall agree to 
pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the 
other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and, if 
approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a law. 
J>ut in all such cases the votes of both Houses shall be deter- 



CONSTITUTION OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 135 

mined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for 
and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House 
respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President 
within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been pre- 
sented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he 
had signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent 
its return, in which case it shall not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence 
of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary 
(except on a question of adjournment,) shall be presented to the 
President of the United States ; and before the same shall take 
effect, shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by him, 
shall be re-passed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in 
the case of a bill. 

SECTION 8. 

The Congress shall have power, 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay 
the debts, and provide for the common defense and general wel- 
fare, of the United States ; but all duties, imposts, and excises, 
shall be uniform throughout the United States : 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States : 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the 
several States, and with the Indian tribes: 

4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform 
laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States: 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign 
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures: 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securi- 
ties and current coin of the United States : 

7. To establish post- offices and post-roads : 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by secur- 
ing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right 
to their respective writings and discoveries: 

0. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court: 
10. To define and punish piracies and felonies, committed on 
the high seas, and offences against the law of nations : 



136 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and 
make rules concerning captures on land and water: 

12. To raise and support armies ; but no appropriation of money 
to that use shall be for a longer term than two years: 

13. To provide and maintain a navy : 

11. To make rules for the government and regulation of the 
land and naval forces: 

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws 
of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions : 

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the 
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed 
in the service of the United States, reserving to the States re- 
spectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of 
training the militia, according to the discipline prescribed by 
Congress: 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, 
over such district, (not exceeding ten miles square,) as may, by 
cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, be- 
come the seat of the government of the United States, and to ex- 
ercise like authority over all places, purchased by the consent of 
the legislature of the State in which the same, shall be, for the 
erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other need- 
ful buildings; — And 

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other pow- 
ers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United 
States, or in any department or office thereof. 

SECTION 9. 

1. The migration or importation of such persons, as any of the 
States, now existing, shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight ; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such 
importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus- 
pended, unless when, in cases of relellit n or invasion, the public 
safety may require it. 

8. No bill, of attainder, or ex post facto law, shall be passed. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1 87 

4. No capitation or other direct tax, shall be laid, unless in 
proportion to the census or enumeration, herein before directed to 
be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any 
State. No preference shall be given by any regulation of com- 
merce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another ; 
nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, 
clear, or pay duties, in another. 

6. No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in conse- 
quence of appropriations made by law, and a regular statement 
and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money 
shall be published, from time to time. 

7. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States : 
And no person, holding any office of profit or trust under them, 
shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, 
emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, •from any king, 
prince, or foreign state. 

section 10. 

1. No State shall enter into any alliance, or confederation ; 
grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of 
credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in pay- 
ment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or 
law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of no- 
bility. 

2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any 
imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be ab- 
solutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and the net 
produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports 
or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United 
States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and con- 
trol of the Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Con- 
gress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war, in 
time of peace, enter in any agreement or compact with another 
State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually 
invaded, or in such imminent danger, as will not admit of delay. 



138 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED SAATES. 

ARTICLE II. 

SECTION 1. 

1. The Executive power shall he vested in a President of the 
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the 
term of four years, and together with the Vice-President, chosen 
for the same term, be elected as follows : 

2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature 
thereof may direct, a number of Electors, equal to the whole num- 
ber of Senators and Representatives, to which the State may be 
entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or 
person holding an office of trust or profit, under the United States, 
shall be appointed an Elector. 

3. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote 
by ballot for two persons, of whom one, at least, shall not be an 
inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall 
make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of 
votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit, 
sealed, to the seat of the government of the United States, direct- 
ed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate, 
shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. 
The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the Presi- 
dent, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Elec- 
tors appointed ; and if there be more than . one, who have such 
majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of 
Representatives shall immediately choose, by ballot, one of ^thern 
for President ; and if no person have a majority, then, from the 
five highest on the list, the said House shall, in like manner, 
choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes 
shall be taken by States, the representation from each State hav- 
ing one vote ; a quorum for this purpose, shall consist of a mem- 
ber or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of 
all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after 
the choice of the President, the person having the greatest num- 
ber of votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if 
there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Sen- 
ate shall choose from them, by ballot, the Vice-President. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 139 

4. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the Elec- 
tors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day 
shall be the same throughout the United States. 

5. No person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the 
United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, 
shall be eligible to the office of President ; neither shall any per- 
son be eligible to that office, who shall not have attained to the 
age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within 
the United States. 

6. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his 
death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties 
of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, 
and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, 
death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice- 
President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and 
such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, 
or a President shall be elected. 

7. The President shall at stated times, receive for his services, 
a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished 
during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he 
shall not receive within that period, any other emolument from the 
United States, or any of them. 

8. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take 
the following oath or affirmation : 

9. "I do solemnly swear, (or affirm,) that I will faithfully exe- 
cute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the 
best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend, the Constitution 
of the United States." 

SECTION 2. 

1. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, 
when called into the actual service of the United States ; he may 
require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of 
the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties 
of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant re- 
prieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except 
in cases of impeachment. 



140 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Sena- 
tors present concur ; and he shall nominate, and by and with the 
advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other 
public ministers, and consuls, judges, of the Supreme Court, and 
all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are 
not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established 
bylaw: but the Congress may bylaw vest the appointment of 
such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, 
in the courts of law, or in the heads of Departments. 

3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that 
may happen, during m the recess of the Senate, by granting com- 
missions, which shall expire at the end of their next session. 

SECTION 3. 

1. He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress informa- 
tion of the state of the Union, and recommend to their considera- 
tion such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he 
may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either 
of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect 
to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as 
he shall think proper ; he shall receive ambassadors and other 
public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully 
executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States. 

SECTION 4. 

1. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the 
United States, shall be removed from office, on impeachment for, 
and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and mis- 
demeanors. 

ARTICLE III. 

SECTION 1. 

1. The Judicial power of the United States shall be vested in 
one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congres 
may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both 
of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during 
good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services 
a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their con- 
tinuance in office. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 141 

SECTION 2. 

1. The Judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, 
arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and 
treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority ; to 
all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; 
to all cases of admirality and maritime jurisdiction; to controver- 
sies to which the United States shall be a party ; to controversies 
between two or more States, between a State and citizens of another 
State, between citizens of different States, between citizens of the 
same State, claiming lands under grants of different States, and 
between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citi- 
zens, or subjects. 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, 
and consuls, and those in which a State phall be a party, the Su- 
preme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other 
cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate 
jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and 
under such regulations, as the Congress shall make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, 
shall be by jury ; and such trial shall be held in the State where 
the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not commit- 
ted within any State, the trial shall be at such place, or places, as 
the Congress may by law have directed. 

section 3. 

1. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levy- 
ing war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving 
them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, 
unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, 
or on confession in open court. 

2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment 
of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of 
blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE IV. 

SECTION 1. 

1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the pub- 
lic acts, records, and judicial proceedings, of every other State. 
And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in 



142 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

which such acts, records, and proceedings, shall be proved, and the 
effect thereof. 

section 2. 

1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States: 

2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other 
crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, 
shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from 
which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having 
jurisdiction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labor in one State, under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, 
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser- 
vice or labor may be due. 

1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 
Union ; but no new State shall be formed, or erected, within the 
jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed, by the 
junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the 
consent of the legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of 
the Congress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other 
property, belonging to the United States; and nothing in this 
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the 
United States, or of any particular State. 

SECTION 4. 

1. The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union 
a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them 
against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or of the 
executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against 
domestic violence. 

ARTICLE V. 

1. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall 
deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, 
or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the sev- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 143 

eral States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, 
which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, 
as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of 
three fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three 
fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may 
be proposed by the Congress : Provided, that no amendment, 
which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred 
and eight, shall, in any manner, affect the first and fourth clauses 
in the ninth section of the first article ; and that no State, with- 
out its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Sen- 
ate. 

ARTICLE VI. 

1. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before 
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the 
United States, under this Constitution, as under the Confedera- 
tion. 

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which 
shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or 
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, 
shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every 
State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or 
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the 
members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and 
judicial officers, both of the United States, and of the several 
States, shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this Con- 
stitution ; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualifi- 
cation to any office or public trust, under the United States. 

ARTICLE VII. 
1. The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the 
States so ratifying the same. 

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 
ARTICLE I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of re- 
ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the 



144 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

free-lam of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people 
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a re- 
dress of grievances. 

ARTICLE II. 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free 
State, the right of a people to keep and bear arms shall not be in- 
fringed. 

ARTICLE III. 

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, 
"without the consent of the owner; nor, in time of war, but in a 
manner to be prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE IV. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 
shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon prob- 
able cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly de- 
scribing the places to be searched, and the persons or things to be 
seized. 

ARTICLE V. 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise 
infamous, crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand 
jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 
militia, when in actual service, or in time of war, or public danger; 
nor shall any person be subject, for the same offense, to be twice 
put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled, in any 
criminal case, to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of 
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall 
private property be taken for public use, without just compensa- 
tion. 

ARTICLE VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right 
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State 
and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which 
district shall have been previously ascertained by law; and to be 
informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be con- 
fronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory pro- 



CONSTITUTION OF TIIE UNITED STATES. 145 

cess for obtaining witnesses in his favor ; and to have the assist- 
ance of counsel for his defense. 

ARTICLE VII. 

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; 
and no fact, tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in 
any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the 
common law. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, 
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

ARTICLE IX. 

The~enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not 
be construed to cjeny or disparage others retained by the people. 

ARTICLE X. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 
tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
States respectively, or to the people. 

ARTICLE XL 

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed 
to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted 
against one of the L^nited States by citizens of another State, or 
by citizens or subjects of any foreign State. 

ARTICLE XII. 

1. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote 
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, 
shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; 
they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, 
and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President; 
and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as Pres- 
ident, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the 
number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign, and certify, 
and transmit, sealed, to the seat of government of the United 
States, directed to the President of the Senate ; the President of 
the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Rep- 



146 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

resentatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be 
counted ; the person having the greatest number of votes for 
President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have 
such majority, then, from the persons having the highest numbers, 
not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, 
the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, 
the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be 
taken by States, the representation from each State having one 
vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or 
members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the 
States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Rep- 
resentatives shall not choose a President, whenever the right of 
choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March 
next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as 
in case of the death, or other constitutional disability, of the Pres- 
ident. 

2. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice- 
President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a major- 
ity of the whole number of Electors appointed ; and if no person 
have a majority, then, from the two highest numbers on the list, 
the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the 
purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of Sena- 
tors ; a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a 
choice. 

3. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of 
President, shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United 
States. 



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